Synthesis of nano-ZnS by lyotropic liquid crystal template method for enhanced photodegradation of methylene blue

[Display omitted] •Layered liquid crystals as the template, successfully prepared ZnS nanoparticles.•The photodegradation rate of MB in 150 min was 99.76%.•The results in this work show that the proposed algorithm has high stability and reusability. Layered liquid crystal templates were prepared in the ternary system of sodium dodecyl sulfate/n-amyl alcohol/water, supplemented with a homogeneous precipitation method to successfully prepare zinc sulfide nanomaterials. Various characterizations and photocatalytic degradation tests using methylene blue (MB) as a simulated pollutant were performed to analyze the fabricated samples. The results showed that the prepared ZnS nanomaterial with a cubic sphalerite structure and high purity obtained the particle size distribution between 60 and 200 nm due to the auxiliary effect of the solvent-liquid crystal template, resulting in high photodegradation performance for MB under xenon lamp irradiation, it showed.