Construction of MoS2 nanoparticles incorporated TiO2 nanosheets heterojunction photocatalyst for enhanced visible light driven hydrogen production

Abstract

One of the challenging issues in photocatalytic hydrogen (H2) production is to efficiently separate the photogenerated electron-hole pairs and require the enrichment of photogenerated electrons on the photocatalyst’s surface Herein, a novel MoS2 nanoparticles (NPs) selectively deposited on the (101) facets of TiO2 NSs with mainly exposed high-active (001) facets is prepared via a spin coating method using FTO as substrate templates. The microstructure, morphological, optical and photocatalytic behavior of as-prepared samples were characterized by X − ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, atomic force microscopy, UV − vis diffuse reflectance spectra, Photoluminescence spectra and H2 degradation experiment. Among the catalysts studied, 15 wt% of MoS2 loaded TiO2 nanocomposite shows an optimum hydrogen evolution rate of 5423.77 μmol g−1 h−1 under visible light. Moreover, Electrochemical and photoresponse characterizations showed that the MoS2/TiO2 binary electrode afford an efficient pathway of photo-excited electrons from TiO2 to surface-decorated MoS2 nanosheets bridges, thus significantly promoting electron transfer, reducing the system over potential and leading to the activation of more reactive sites. It is believed that the improving photocatalytic performance of heterostructure could be ascribed to the synergetic effect between the MoS2 and TiO2, which accelerated the separation and migration efficiency of charge carries as well as enhanced the light-harvest efficiency.