Energy storehouse and a remarkable photocatalyst: Al₂S₃/Cu₂S/Ni₁₇S₁₈ thin film as supercapacitor electrode and pollutants degradation

ABSTRACT

Fabrication of the tri metal sulphide Al₂S₃-Cu₂S-Ni₁₇S₁₈ thin film was achieved by physical vapour deposition. The synthesised material was fully characterised by XRD, SEM, EDX, UV-visible spectrophotometer and FTIR. A nanoscale ranged 23.5 nm average crystallite size was obtained for the ternary metal sulphide. A motley of clustered morphological particles was observed by SEM with the confirmation of the desired metals through energy dispersive X-ray. Band gap energy possessed by the ternary metal sulphide was 2.5 eV. The remarkable energy storing capability of the electrode was investigated by cyclic voltammetry, which presented a supercapacitance of 595 F g⁻¹ expressing the pertinence of the synthesised material. Cycling stability of the nanoparticle thin film was also observed through the voltammetric analysis. Furthermore, the environmental applicability of the thin film was investigated by the photocatalytic degradation of pollutants with an impressive degradation rate constant 3.61 × 10⁻² min⁻¹ achieved for pesticide.

KEYWORDS:

• Supercapacitor
• energy storage
• photocatalyst
• thin film
• metal sulphide
• cyclic voltammetry
• linear sweep voltammetry
• physical vapour deposition

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Lab E-21, Department of Environmental Sciences, Fatima Jinnah Women University Rawalpindi Pakistan. Authors also acknowledge the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. We are highly thankful to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for providing financial support for this research under NRPU project No. 15782.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.