Deposition of MoSx on TiO2 nanosheets for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

• 1、School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, 430072.

Abstract：Aiming at lowering the recombination rate of photogenerated electron-hole pairs and improving the photocatalytic activity of TiO2, we report a MoSx/TiO2 nanohybrid prepared by a facile photo-assisted deposition method. TEM, XRD, XPS and DSR were used to charaterized the morphology, structure and photoelectrochemical properties of MoSx/TiO2 nanohybrid. The photocatalytic hydrogen production activity was measured by using methanol as sacrificial reagent under Xenon light irradiation. Results show that the MoSx is in amorphous phase and contains a large amount of unsaturated S atoms, which provide abundant active sites for hydrogen evolution. In addition, the heterojunction between TiO2 and MoSx facilitate the charge separation and tranfer, thus lower the recombination rate of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. Photocatalytic activity tests show that the MoSx/TiO2 nanohybrid exhibits a hydrogen production rate about 177 times higher than that of bare TiO2 nanosheet, indicating that the loading of amorphous MoSx is an efficient way to improve the photocatalytic hydrogen production activity of TiO2.

Keywords： Inorganic chemistry MoSx TiO2 nanosheets Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution heterojunction.