Facile synthesis of few-layered MoS2 modified BiOI with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

Highly efficient few-layered MoS2/BiOI photocatalysts were successfully prepared by one-step solvent thermal process. The photocatalytic performance of MoS2/BiOI was evaluated by using rhodamine B (RhB) as the target pollution to degrade under visible light irradiation. After the introduction of MoS2 nanosheet, the MoS2/BiOI composites showed excellent photocatalytic performance. The optimal content of MoS2 was 0.5 wt%, and the composites exhibited a higher photocatalytic activity than the pure BiOI and MoS2/BiOI composites with different MoS2 weight ratios. The primary cause of the enhanced photo catalytic activity of MoS2/BiOI was the formation of heterojunction between BIM and MoS2, which could promote the electron-hole pairs separation ability. The main active species during the photocatalytic process was discussed by the radicals trapping experiments with the addition of different scavengers. Meanwhile, a possible mechanism was proposed to explicate the improvement of photocatalytic activity upon visible light irradiation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.