Preparation of heterostructured TiO2/MoS2 for efficient photocatalytic rhodamine B degradation

Abstract

Coating a few layers of MoS₂ nanosheets on a substrate is an effective approach to enhance catalytic activity for photocatalytic degradation. Herein, we fabricated heterostructured TiO₂/MoS₂ (H-TiO₂/MoS₂) with high structural stability via a simple two-step solvothermal approach. H-TiO₂/MoS₂ was composed of TiO₂ as a hard core and MoS₂ nanosheets as a shell, which could increase the electron transfer rate between TiO₂ and MoS₂ and enable active edge sites of MoS₂ to be maximally exposed. Besides, H-TiO₂/MoS₂ indicated enhanced light absorption in the UV to Vis range when compared to TiO₂ nanoparticles, and slightly lower than that of MoS₂. This is beneficial for the enhancement of the photocatalytic degradation performance. Therefore, H-TiO₂/MoS₂ displayed a strong adsorption ability toward organic dyes and showed excellent performance in the photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B with the concentration decreased by 99.4% due to the synergistically stimulative effect. The work will enlighten the development of highly efficient molybdenum sulfide-based heterostructured photocatalysts.