Synthesis of Manganese Carbonate Templates with Different Morphologies and Their Application in Preparing Hollow MoS₂ Micro/Nanostructures for Photocatalysis.

Abstract

Spherical manganese carbonate (MnCO³) templates were successfully prepared by a facile chemical precipitation method. The size of the as-prepared samples was changed by adjusting the ratio of MnSO₄·H2O and NaHCO₃ (1:1, 1:5, 1:10 and 1:15). More interestingly, when adding Na₂SO₄ to the reaction solution, the morphology of MnCO³ further evolved from an irregular spheroid to a cube. Next, spherical and cubic MnCO³ particles with the most uniform size were selected as precursor templates to synthesize intermediate compounds (MnCO³/MnS/MoS₂). Eventually, MoS₂ microspheres and microcubes with a hollow structure were obtained by removing the MnCO³ and MnS with acid pickling. The structure, morphology and elemental composition of the products were characterized with X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). The results of the photocatalytic experiments show that hollow MoS₂ prepared with an MnCO³ template exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance. Therefore, the application of a template method to prepare hollow structure materials is worthy of further study in the photocatalysis field.