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Horizontally growth of WS2/WO3 heterostructures on crystalline g-C3N4 nanosheets towards enhanced photo/electrochemical performance

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Abstract

Two-dimensional carbon-based material is attracting considerable attention in exploiting photocatalyst under visible light for photocatalytic energy conversion and storage field, e.g., photocatalytic H2 production, and photodegradation. Here, WS2/WO3 composites are grown on crystalline graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets to form heterostructures using a hydrothermal treatment method. While the composition of WS2/WO3 depends on the preparation conditions, the ratio of WS2/WO3 affects the photocatalytic performance of samples. WS2/g-C3N4 heterostructures prepared with addition of ascorbic acid reveal enhanced photocatalytic activity due to efficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers. In contrast, sample with relatively low-WS2 proportion reveals high-H2 generation performance under visible-light irradiation. Under full solar spectrum irradiation, the average H2 evolution rate of sample is increased by 5.7 times comparing with that under visible-light test condition. The electrochemical performance of WS2/WO3/g-C3N4 heterostructures was studied using g-C3N4 with different crystallinity for comparison. With fixed WS2/WO3/g-C3N4 ratio, crystalline g-C3N4 leads to improved photocatalytic activity of WS2/WO3/g-C3N4 heterostructures. Sample using g-C3N4 with the highest crystallinity (prepared at 750 ℃) has the highest photodegradation rate and photocurrent response rate comparing with the samples prepared using low-crystalline g-C3N4 substrate.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council under the Discovery Scheme (Project No. DP180100731, DP180100568), the projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 51772130 and 51972145).

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  1. Fuels and Energy Technology Institute and WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, Perth, WA6845, Australia

    Xiao Zhang & San Ping Jiang

  2. School of Material Science and Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan, 250022, People’s Republic of China

    Ping Yang

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Zhang, X., Yang, P. & Jiang, S.P. Horizontally growth of WS2/WO3 heterostructures on crystalline g-C3N4 nanosheets towards enhanced photo/electrochemical performance. J Nanostruct Chem 11, 367–380 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40097-020-00373-7

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