2D heterostructure comprised of metallic 1T-MoS2/Monolayer O-g-C3N4 towards efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Efficient separation of hole-electron pair plays a crucial role in enhancing photocatalytic water splitting activity, which essentially requires a noble metal co-catalyst. Here we report that two-dimensional (2D) metallic 1T-MoS2 can exceed the performance of noble metal like Pt as a co-catalyst in assisting the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution over 2D semiconductor such as oxygenated monolayer graphitic carbon nitride (O-g-C3N4). The abundance of intrinsic active site for hydrogen evolution reaction for 1T-MoS2 partly contributes to the outstanding performance of 1T-MoS2/O-g-C3N4 system. More importantly, the 2D heterostructure junction of 2D metals-2D semiconductor through van der Waals interaction minimizes the Schottky barrier, which in turn improves the charge transfer efficiency. The optimal 1T-MoS2/O-g-C3N4 exhibited H-2 evolution rate as high as similar to 1841.72 mu mol/g/h, an external quantum efficiency of similar to 7.11% at lambda = 420 nm, and a super high TOF of 156.6 h(-1).