Preparation and Characterization of Aloe Vera Extract Capped CdS Nanoparticles and Their Photocatalytic, Luminescence and Optical Studies

Green synthesis method is used to prepare the Cadmium Sulphide Nanoparticles (CdS NPs) using various cadmium salts. CdS NPs are prepared by using the Cadmium Chloride, Cadmium Nitrate along with Cadmium Sulphate additionally Sodium Sulphide as precursors and Aloe vera leaf gel extract is used as stabilizing agent. The materials are characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) technique to know its structure. The XRD trends display broad peaks at 2θ values of around 26.38˚, 29.84˚, 44.42˚, 51.96˚ and 71.14˚ which could be indexed to scattering from (111), (200), (220), (311) and (331) planes of cubic phase respectively of Cadmium Sulphide. The Band gap of the sample is found from UV-Visible absorbance spectroscopy and its value determined as 5.04 eV, 5.18 and 5.09 eV for the precursors cadmium chloride, cadmium nitrate and cadmium sulphate respectively apart from this cadmium sulphate precursor shows 3.58 eV that means there are two size distribution of NPs formed for cadmium sulphate precursor. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) as well as Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) techniques are employed to know the functional groups, morphology and elemental analysis of the as synthesized material. The average particle size of CdS NPs determined from TEM is around 3 nm for all the precursors and it is further confirmed by Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS).