Synthesis of few-layer MoS2 nanosheet-coated TiO2 nanobelt heterostructures for enhanced photocatalytic activities

• Main Authors: Zhou, Weijia, Yin, Zongyou, Du, Yaping, Huang, Xiao, Zeng, Zhiyuan, Fan, Zhanxi, Liu, Hong, Wang, Jiyang, Zhang, Hua
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Materials Science and Engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/99682; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/17770
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

MoS2 nanosheet-coated TiO2 nanobelt heterostructures—referred to as TiO2@MoS2—with a 3D hierarchical configuration are prepared via a hydrothermal reaction. The TiO2 nanobelts used as a synthetic template inhibit the growth of MoS2 crystals along the c-axis, resulting in a few-layer MoS2 nanosheet coating on the TiO2 nanobelts. The as-prepared TiO2@MoS2 heterostructure shows a high photocatalytic hydrogen production even without the Pt co-catalyst. Importantly, the TiO2@MoS2 heterostructure with 50 wt% of MoS2 exhibits the highest hydrogen production rate of 1.6 mmol h−1g−1. Moreover, such a heterostructure possesses a strong adsorption ability towards organic dyes and shows high performance in photocatalytic degradation of the dye molecules.