Facile solvothermal synthesis of 3D flowerlike β-In2S3 microspheres and their photocatalytic activity performance

Three-dimension (3D) flowerlike beta-In2S3 microspheres have been successfully synthesized by a facile solvothermal method using thioacetamide (TAA, CH3CSNH2) as both a sulfur source and ligand of In3+ in the ethanol-water system. The morphologies of In2S3 can be controlled by simply changing the volume ratio of ethanol to water in the solvent. The experimental results demonstrate that 3D flowerlike beta-In2S3 microspheres undergo surface recrystallization, selective absorption and oriented growth processes. A detailed morphology formation mechanism has been proposed and discussed. Furthermore, the 3D flowerlike beta-In2S3 microspheres show relatively high visible-light photocatalytic activity for methyl orange (MO) degradation, which can be attributed to both the relative higher BET surface area and advantageous optical properties.