Construction of Nano-Fe2O3-Decorated Flower-Like MoS2 with Fe-S Bonds for Efficient Photoreduction of CO2 under Visible-Light Irradiation

A p-n heterostructured alpha-Fe2O3/MoS2 composite via Fe-S bonds was developed as a highly efficient CO2 photoreduction catalyst driven by visible light. The alpha-Fe2O3 nanoparticles were embedded between the flower-like MoS2 layers, benefitting for the uniform dispersion of themselves and meanwhile promoting the formation of 1T-MoS2. The construction of p-n heterostructure caused by Fe-S bonds led to the close contact between alpha-Fe2O3 and MoS2, in which alpha-Fe2O3 was capped with few MoS2 layers and enhanced the segregation and transportation of photoinduced electrons and holes. As a result, the 5FM photocatalyst (5 wt % alpha-Fe2O3 loading on MoS2) exhibited an excellent CO2 photoreduction performance, which obtained 121 mu mol.h(-)(1) .g(-1) of CH4 and 41 mu mol.h(-)(1).g(-1) of CH3OH. During the photoreduction process, alpha-Fe2O3 species were the main active cites, confirmed by in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy.