Formation of hollow MoO3/SnS2 heterostructured nanotubes for efficient light-driven hydrogen peroxide production

Abstract

Molybdenum trioxide (MoO₃) has significant potential as an attractive semiconductor material owing to its low cost, nontoxicity, high electrochemical activity, and environmentally benign nature compared to other metal oxides. Nevertheless, its potential for photocatalytic application has been hindered due to the high recombination rate of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, resulting in lower photocatalytic performance. In this work, a facile method was developed to synthesize SnS₂/MoO₃ hollow nanotubes. The as-prepared samples exhibit enhanced hydrogen peroxide production performance. A series of characterization experiments were conducted and the results prove that SnS₂ nanosheets are uniformly dispersed on the surface of the hollow MoO₃ nanotubes. Three-dimensional hetero-SnS₂/MoO₃ exhibited high charge transfer ability owing to its hollow structure and high surface area, which provides more active sites and improves the mobility of the radicals. Meanwhile, a synergistic effect between MoO₃ and SnS₂ is found to yield optimal hydrogen peroxide production performance. The as-prepared SnS₂/MoO₃ hollow nanotubes can exhibit best hydrogen peroxide production performance with good stability (95% after four cycles).