Controllable growth of MoS 2 nanosheets on TiO 2 burst nanotubes and their photocatalytic activity.

MoS 2 nanosheets were grown on TiO 2 nanotubes by the simple hydrothermal method for the first time. The layer-by-layer growth of MoS 2 nanosheets led to a significant increase in the specific surface area of TiO 2 /MoS 2 burst tube composites compared with TiO 2 burst tubes, a significantly enhanced ability to separate photo-induced carriers, and synergistic adsorption and visible light catalytic activity of dye molecules. The maximum adsorption ( q max ) of MB was 72.46 mg g -1 . In addition, 94.1% of MB could be degraded after 30 minutes of visible light irradiation. The microsurface morphology, structure, chemical composition, element valence and band width of TiO 2 /MoS 2 nanocomposites were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). The mechanism of photocatalytic reaction was studied via free radical capture experiments.