Review of Metal Sulfide Nanostructures and their Applications

The rapid development of population, industry, and urbanization have generated significant issues including energy consumption and water contamination. Advanced materials are needed to clean up the surroundings and develop potential energy storage devices. Metal sulfides (MSs) nanomaterials are prospective candidates for multidimensional applications in medicine, biology, environmental sciences, and energy production/utilization due to their light absorption, optical characteristics, high specific capacitance, and catalytic/photocatalytic capability. Recent developments showed its use as electrode material for Li, Na, K, and Mg ion batteries, solar cells, and supercapacitors, electrocatalysts for the oxygen/hydrogen evolution reaction, sensors for gases/chemicals, and catalysts/photocatalysts for environmental remediation. Scalable techniques for producing high-quality, low-cost metal sulfides, heterostructures, and hybrids are needed to realize the potential of these interesting materials fully. This review summarizes current achievements in MSs notably, manganese sulfide (MnS), iron sulfide (FeS), cobalt sulfide (CoS), nickel sulfide (NiS), copper sulfide (CuS), zinc sulfide (ZnS), silver sulfide (AgS), cadmium sulfide (CdS), tungsten sufide (WS), tin sulfide (SnS), lead sulfide (PbS), and molybdenum disufide (MOS2) and their efficient physiochemical and biological production to get controlled morphologies, sizes, and compositions.