Efficient visible-light piezophototronic activity of ZnO-Ag₈S hybrid for degradation of organic dye molecule

The usage of semiconductor photocatalyst has been received great attention in recent years due to their wide application in photocatalytic water-splitting and degradation of pollutants in waste water and environmental remediation application, etc. In this study, we demonstrated the efficient synergistically piezo-phototronic effect (which is combined activity of piezo- and photocatalytic) of ZnO-Ag₈S hybrid for the degradation of an organic dye. Hydrothermal method was adopted for the growth of ZnO tetrapods on the surface of glass substrate. Ag₈S modified ZnO obtained by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method, has shown an increased photo-decolorization rate compared with bare photocatalyst. This piezo-photocatalytic hybrid material plays an important role in electron trapping and also hindered the charge carrier recombination. The photo-degradation mechanism of Rhodamine-B dye with Ag₈S modified piezoelectric ZnO hybrid material has shown 7.3 fold increment when compared with bare photocatalyst. Our study reveals that ZnO-Ag₈S hybrid shows a better visible-light piezophototronic activity which further explores a new catalyst design approach for existing photocatalytic application in environmental remediation.