In2S3/carbon nanofibers/Au ternary synergetic system: Hierarchical assembly and enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

We describe a route to synthesize In2S3/CNFs/Au ternary synergetic system with high efficiency visible-light photocatalytic activity. •Synthesis of In2S3/CNFs/Au ternary synergetic system.•Enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity.•Easy photocatalyst separation and reuse. In this paper, carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were successfully synthesized by electrospinning technique. Next, Au nanoparticles (NPs) were assembled on the electrospun CNFs through in situ reduction method. By using the obtained Au NPs modified CNFs (CNFs/Au) as hard template, the In2S3/CNFs/Au composites were synthesized through hydrothermal technique. The results showed that the super long one-dimensional (1D) CNFs (about 306nm in average diameter) were well connected to form a nanofibrous network; and, the Au NPs with 18nm in average diameter and In2S3 nanosheets with 5–10nm in thickness were uniformly grown onto the surface of CNFs. Photocatalytic studies revealed that the In2S3/CNFs/Au composites exhibited highest visible-light photocatalytic activities for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RB) compared with pure In2S3 and In2S3/CNFs. The enhanced photocatalytic activity might arise from the high separation efficiency of photogenerated electron–hole pairs based on the positive synergetic effect between In2S3, CNFs and Au components in this ternary photocatalytic system. Meanwhile, the In2S3/CNFs/Au composites with hierarchical structure possess a strong adsorption ability towards organic dyes, which also contributed to the enhancement of photocatalytic activity. Moreover, the In2S3/CNFs/Au composites could be recycled easily by sedimentation due to their nanofibrous network structure.