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

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.