Controllable synthesis of α-sulfur spheres with hierarchical nanostructures for efficient visible-light-driven photocatalytic ability

Highlights: • α-Sulfur spheres with hierarchical nanostructures are controllably produced. • Addition quantity of PVP affects photocatalytic ability of α-sulfur. • The enhanced photocatalytic ability of α-sulfur hierarchical sphere is found. - Abstract: Visible-light-active α-sulfur spheres with hierarchical nanostructures were fabricated by simple solution-phase synthesis with PVP as the template for enhanced photocatalytic ability. The α-sulfur hierarchical spheres with an ultrahigh specific surface area can controllable synthesized by changing the addition quantity of PVP. The obtained products are systematically studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis absorption spectroscopy (DRS), Fluorescence (FL) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared samples is evaluated by photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) aqueous solution under visible light illumination. The results indicate that the morphology, specific surface area, photo absorbance ability, the separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers and the reactant adsorption performance can be controlled by varying the addition quantity of PVP. When 200 mg PVP is added, α-sulfur hierarchical spheres with uniform particle size about 1 μm and ultrahigh specific surface area of 67.1 m²/g is obtained, and its photocatalytic activity reaches a maximum value, which can be attributed to the combined effects of photo absorbance ability, the separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers and the reactant adsorption performance