2D/2D heterostructured MoS₂/PtSe₂ promoting charge separation in FTO thin film for efficient and stable photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Excerpt

Exploiting stable photocatalytic films is of practical significance for solar energy-hydrogen conversion and pollutant degradation, yet remains a big challenge so far. In this work, we report a highly stable photocatalytic film, i.e., MoS₂/PtSe₂/FTO by sequential growing PtSe₂ and MoS₂ onto commercially fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates using two round thermal evaporation and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The optimized MoS₂/PtSe₂/FTO film achieves a high photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) rate of 1560 mmol·h⁻¹·m⁻², which is far larger than that of blank FTO and mono-MX₂/FTO film, i.e., PtSe₂/FTO together with MoS₂/FTO films. More importantly, the MoS₂/PtSe₂/FTO film exhibits excellent material structure and performance stability, maintaining no HER activity decay after 100-h continuous photocatalytic experiment. A series of electronic/spectroscopic characterizations demonstrate that the 2DQ3/2D heterostructured MoS₂/PtSe₂ facilitates the separation and transfer of the photogenerated electrons-holes and consequently effectively suppresses the charge recombination in the FTO. The MoS₂/PtSe₂/FTO film shows great potential as a feasible stable and efficient photocatalyst for solar-to-hydrogen conversion and pollutant degradation. …