We present a simplistic, ultrafast, and facile hydrothermal deposition of ternary Cu₂SnS₃ nanoparticles (CTS NPs). The fabricated CTS NPs show superior antimicrobial and photocatalytic activities. In the presence of UV-Visible illumination, methylene blue (MB) dye was studied for photocatalytic dye degradation activity of CTS NPs. Excellent efficiency is shown by incorporating CTS NPs to degrade MB dye. There is a ~95% decrease in the absorbance peak of the dye solution within 120 min. Similarly, CTS NPs tested against three bacterial strains, i.e., B. subtilis, S. aureus, P. vulgaris, and one fungal strain C. albicans, defining the lowest inhibitory concentration and zone of inhibition, revealed greater antimicrobial activity. Hence, it is concluded that the CTS NPs are photocatalytically and antimicrobially active and have potential in biomedicine.

In the present work, the photocatalytic activity of pristine Cu₂SnS₃ (CTS) and a composite with graphene oxide (GO), i.e., CTS + GO, prepared by the precipitation technique, and its utilization as a catalyst for the degradation of Navy Blue (NB) ME2RL reactive azo dye were studied. The structural, morphological, and optical properties of the synthesized composite were evaluated. The degradation of azo dyes was used to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the CTS + GO composite under visible light irradiation. When compared to pure CTS, the CTS + GO nanocomposite demonstrated increased photocatalytic activity. The improved photocatalysis is due to reduced recombination of generated charge carriers, better visible light absorption, and modified dye absorption via GO amalgamation in CTS. The simple and well-organized chemical bath method for catalyst preparation will be more suited to industrial production.

The present study presents a numerical analysis of p-type CdTe and n-type TiO2 heterojunction solar cells. The simulations were conducted using SCAPS-1D software to investigate the effects of varying the thickness of the p-type CdTe layer, the temperature, and the band gap on the efficiency of the solar cell. The results show that the efficiency of the solar cell increases from 16.81 to 18.28% as the thickness of the p-type CdTe layer is varied from 1.0 to 5.0 µm and decreases from 17.95 to 11.67 % as the temperature is varied from 300 to 400 K. The efficiency also increases from 15.29 to 19.26 % as the band gap is varied from 1.40 to 1.55 eV. For the p-CdTe/n-TiO2 heterojunction solar cell, the optimized absorber layer thickness is 3 µm, and the optimized temperature and band gap are 300 K and 1.5 eV, respectively. At these optimized parameters, the highest efficiency (ⴄ) % achieved was 17.95 %, with a VOC of 0.766 V, JSC of 27.75 mA/cm2, and FF of 84.39 %. These results provide theoretical guidelines for fabricating efficient p-CdTe/n-TiO2 heterojunction solar cells.

This paper presents the fabrication of a copper tin sulfide (CTS) counter electrode for application in third-generation solar cells. The fabrication process involved modified chemical bath deposition (M-CBD) or a successive ionic layer adsorption reaction (SILAR). Initially, a ZnO seed layer was deposited onto a fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate via CBD. Subsequently, a mesoporous layer of ZnO was deposited onto the FTO substrate using the doctor-blade method. The mesoporous ZnO layer was sensitized with CdS nanocrystals deposited using the SILAR method. Various characterization techniques, including UV–Vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), were employed to analyze the optical, structural, and morphological properties of the photoanode and CTS counter electrode. The results demonstrate the successful synthesis of a CTS counter electrode with desirable properties for solar-cell applications. The fabricated CTS counter electrode exhibited a conversion efficiency of 0.49%, which was significantly higher than that of carbon-based counter electrodes.