Highly efficient photocatalysis of p-type Cu2ZnSnS4 under visible-light illumination

Abstract Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 , as a very promising p -type semiconductor material, has been extensively used in the study of solar cells owing to its suitable band gap (1.1–1.5 eV), large absorption coefficient of 10 4  cm −1 in the visible spectrum, good photo stability, nontoxicity and relative abundance of the component elements. In this paper, we have successfully synthesized p -type kesterite Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 nanocrystal powder by facile one-pot method, and made our first successful attempt to use Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 nanocrystal powder as a photocatalyst to degradation methyl orange under visible-light irradiation. The exciting results show that in the visible light region, Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 nanocrystal powder possesses an excellent photocatalytic performance of K  = 0.0317 min −1 , nearly about 6 times of well known commercial P25 titania powder performance under the same conditions, which suggests that the p -type kesterite Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 nanocrystal would be a promising candidate of photocatalyst.