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The increasingly depleted fossil fuels have brought unprecedented energy crises and environmental hazards, so the development of novel renewable clean energy resources have become an urgent need for social development. In recent years, the rises of two‐dimensional nanomaterials have brought new hope for energy conversion and storage. These unique t...
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... 22,23 Since the discovery of graphene with novel properties, 24,25 two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have gained more importance due to their wide range of applications ranging from electronics 26,27 to catalysis. 28,29 The library of 2D TMDCs, including MoS 2 , 30 MoSe 2 , 31 WS 2 , 32 WSe 2 , 33 and MoTe 2 , 34 has been utilized in various photocatalytic/electrocatalytic applications due to their suitable physicochemical characteristics including large surface area, earth-abundant characteristics, and chemical inertness. 35 Normally, three processes are involved in photocatalytic water splitting: (1) light absorption by a catalyst, (2) charge-carrier generation/separation, and lastly (3) redox reactions at the catalyst's surface. ...
We report a facile method for the preparation of nanocomposites of molybdenum sulfo-selenide (MoSxSe1−x) with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) via a solvothermal approach. The synthesized MoSSe@CNT and MoSSe@RGO nanocomposites are characterized by various microscopic and spectroscopic methods. We investigated the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance of the MoSSe@CNT and MoSSe@RGO nanocomposites using eosin Y dye as a sensitizer, and triethanolamine as a sacrificial agent, under UV-vis light (Xenon lamp; 400 W) illumination. The highest photocatalytic HER activity of 5016 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹ is achieved with the MoSSe@RGO nanocomposite, which is ∼3 times higher than that of the bare MoSxSe1−x nanostructure (1754 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹). Meanwhile, the MoSSe@CNT nanocomposite shows a somewhat lower activity of 3622 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹. These results indicate that the growth of MoSSe over conducting CNT/RGO improves the HER activity of the MoSSe nanostructure, but 2D RGO offers more facile electron-transfer routes compared to 1D CNTs. The HER activity of the nanocomposites is comparable with some of the recently reported 2D transition-metal-based nanocomposites reported in the literature. Photoluminescence studies indicate that the facile charge-transfer interaction between MoSSe and RGO/SWCNT is responsible for the remarkable HER activity of the nanocomposites. Additionally, more exposed edge sites of vertically grown discrete MoSSe nanostructures in the case of the nanocomposites, as suggested by microscopic studies, plausibly also contribute to the improved photocatalytic HER activity.
