Hydrothermal synthesis of CdS sub-microspheres for photocatalytic degradation of pharmaceuticals

Visible light active CdS were synthesised through a hydrothermal method followed by evaluation of their efficiency in the photodegradation of acetaminophen and levofloxacin. The microspheres were characterised by various physico-chemical techniques such as SEM, UV–Vis, XRD and XPS. The microspheres of about 0.5 µm size were observed to have lower band gap energy of about 2.26 eV. XPS analysis confirmed the formation of impurity-free CdS microspheres. Photocatalytic degradation studies using visible light from LEDs (455 nm) showed high degradation of the two drugs. Up to 85% of the acetaminophen and 70% of the levofloxacin were degraded in 240 min. CdS microspheres are promising visible light active photocatalyts for the degradation of pharmaceuticals such as acetaminophen and levofloxacin in water.