Synthesis and characterization of mesoporous ZnS

Mesoporous zinc sulfide was synthesized by a natural templating route in which dodecylamine was chosen as the template-directing agent. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and nitrogen adsorption-desorption were used to analyze the morphological characteristics of the obtained products. After removing the templates by solvent extraction method, the mesoporous structure remained stably with a high surface area of 223 m²/g and a narrow pore diameter distribution of 4.9 nm. Furthermore, according to the results being from X-ray diffraction, the obtained mesoporous could be indexed to a cubic ZnS structure. Finally, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to investigate the role of organic template played in connecting the obtained mesoporous structure.