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Chemically exfoliated metallic MoS2 nanosheets: A promising supporting co-catalyst for enhancing the photocatalytic performance of TiO2 nanocrystals

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Abstract

Electron-hole separation is a critical step to achieving efficient photocatalysis, towards which use of co-catalysts has become a widely used strategy. Despite the tremendous efforts and demonstrated functions of noble metal co-catalysts, seeking noble metal-free co-catalysts will always be the goal when designing cost-effective, high-performance hybrid photocatalysts. In this work, we demonstrate that MoS2 nanosheets with 1T phase (i.e., octahedral phase) can function as a co-catalyst with multiple merits: (1) Noble-metal-free; (2) high mobility for charge transport; (3) high density of active sites for H2 evolution on basal planes; (4) good performance stability; (5) high light transparency. As demonstrated in both photocatalytic hydrogen production and Rhodamine B degradation, the developed hybrid structure with TiO2 exhibits excellent performance, in sharp contrast to bare TiO2 and the hybrid counterpart with 2H-MoS2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, and School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Song Bai, Limin Wang, Xiaoyi Chen, Junteng Du & Yujie Xiong

Authors
  1. Song Bai
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  2. Limin Wang
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  3. Xiaoyi Chen
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  4. Junteng Du
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  5. Yujie Xiong
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Correspondence to Yujie Xiong.

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Bai, S., Wang, L., Chen, X. et al. Chemically exfoliated metallic MoS2 nanosheets: A promising supporting co-catalyst for enhancing the photocatalytic performance of TiO2 nanocrystals. Nano Res. 8, 175–183 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-014-0606-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-014-0606-9

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