The influx of numerous organic contaminants and heavy metals into freshwater sources has serious effects on the aquatic environment and has made life very difficult. Synthesized photocatalysts have demonstrated considerable promise in the degradation of organic pollutants, such as dyes from various sources. This research presents the sonochemical synthesis of Ag doped zinc sulfide/iron oxide nanocomposites as magnetically separable photocatalysts with bifunctional applications. To determine the effect of the weight percentage of dopant on photocatalytic activity, Ag doped zinc sulfide/iron oxide nanocomposites were prepared at different concentrations of dopant, including 2.5, 5, and 10 wt%. Zinc sulfide/iron oxide nanocomposites with and without Ag dopant were employed as photocatalysts for degrading rhodamine B (RhB) as a color pollutant under visible and UV light. In the present study, the photocatalysts were characterized by using x-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), (energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR), photoluminescence (PL) spectrophotometry and ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) spectrophotometer to survey their structural, morphological, magnetic and optical features. Besides, the Mott-Schottky analysis was utilized to derive the carrier concentrations (N_D), flat band potentials of the samples. The results show that doping of Ag in the zinc sulfide/iron oxide nanocomposite led to extended visible light absorption. In addition, approximately 96% of RhB was degraded by 5 wt% Ag doped zinc sulfide/iron oxide nanocomposite after 4hr of visible light irradiation. Moreover, 10 wt% Ag doped zinc sulfide/iron oxide nanocomposite demonstrated a considerable specific surface area (147.7 m² g⁻¹), which indicates a noteworthy adsorption capacity of 2.74 m g⁻¹. Also, it was demonstrated that the zinc sulfide/iron oxide photocatalyst exhibited a strong magnetic capacity which was revealed by a saturation magnetization (Ms) of 58.22 emu/g, a remanent magnetization (Mr) of 1.4emu/g and a coercivity (Hc) of 11.62 Oe. Eventually, the photocatalytic mechanism of Ag doped zinc sulfide/iron oxide was thoroughly discussed. Therefore, to benefit from the potential of Ag dopants in the preparation of nanocomposites for wastewater treatment while maximizing the photocatalytic efficiency, a thorough study of their effect on the structural and optical properties of photocatalysts is required.

大量有机污染物和重金属流入淡水源，对水生环境造成严重影响，使生活变得非常困难。合成光催化剂在降解有机污染物（例如各种来源的染料）方面表现出巨大的前景。本研究提出了Ag掺杂硫化锌/氧化铁纳米复合材料的声化学合成，作为具有双功能应用的磁可分离光催化剂。确定掺杂剂重量百分比对光催化活性的影响制备了不同掺杂浓度的银掺杂硫化锌/氧化铁纳米复合材料，包括2.5、5和10 wt%。含或不含银掺杂剂的硫化锌/氧化铁纳米复合材料被用作光催化剂，在可见光和紫外光下降解罗丹明B (RhB) 作为颜色污染物。在本研究中，通过使用X射线衍射（XRD）、场发射扫描电子显微镜（FE-SEM）、（能量色散X射线光谱（EDS）、Brunauer-Emmet-Teller（BET）、振动样品磁强计(VSM)、傅里叶变换红外光谱(FTIR)、光致发光(PL) 分光光度法和紫外-可见光 (UV-Vis)分光光度计来测量其结构、形态、磁性和光学特征。此外，利用莫特-肖特基分析得出样品的_D结果表明，硫化锌/氧化铁纳米复合材料中Ag的掺杂导致可见光吸收延长。此外，在可见光照射4小时后，约96%的RhB被5wt%Ag掺杂的硫化锌/氧化铁纳米复合材料降解。此外，10 wt% Ag掺杂的硫化锌/氧化铁纳米复合材料表现出相当大的比表面积（147.7 m² g^-1），这表明其吸附容量高达2.74 m g^-1。此外，还证明硫化锌/氧化铁光催化剂表现出强磁容量，​​其饱和磁化强度（Ms）为58.22emu/g，剩磁化强度（Mr）为1.4emu/g，矫顽力（Hc） ）的 11.62 Oe。最终，深入讨论了Ag掺杂硫化锌/氧化铁的光催化机理。因此，为了充分利用银掺杂剂在制备用于废水处理的纳米复合材料中的潜力，同时最大限度地提高光催化效率，需要深入研究它们对光催化剂结构和光学性质的影响。