Nanostructured 2D MoS 2 honeycomb and hierarchical 3D CdMoS 4 marigold nanoflowers for hydrogen production under solar light

• Published in: Journal of materials chemistry. A, Materials for energy and sustainability Materials for energy and sustainability, 2015, Vol.3 (42), p.21233-21243
• Main Authors: Kadam, Sunil R., Late, Dattatray J., Panmand, Rajendra P., Kulkarni, Milind V., Nikam, Latesh K., Gosavi, Suresh W., Park, Chan J., Kale, Bharat B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2050-7488; 2050-7496
• DOI: 10.1039/C5TA04617C

Unique two dimensional (2D) honeycomb layered MoS 2 nanostructures and hierarchical 3D marigold nanoflowers of CdMoS 4 were designed using a template free and facile solvothermal method. The MoS 2 structure is depicted with a sheet like morphology with lateral dimensions of 5–10 μm and a thickness of ∼200 nm and a honeycomb nanostructure architecture produced via the self-assembling of vertically grown thin hexagonal nanosheets with a thickness of 2–3 nm. The 3D CdMoS 4 marigold nanoflower architecture comprised thin nanopetals with lateral dimensions of 1–2 μm and a thickness of a few nm. The CdMoS 4 and MoS 2 structures displayed hydrogen (H 2 ) production rates of 25 445 and 12 555 μmol h −1 g −1 , respectively. The apparent quantum yields of hydrogen production were observed to be 35.34% and 17.18% for CdMoS 4 and MoS 2 , respectively. The 3D nanostructured marigold flowers of CdMoS 4 and honeycomb like 2D nanostructure of MoS 2 were responsible for higher photocatalytic activity due to inhibition of the charge carrier recombination. The prima facie observation of H 2 production showed that the ternary semiconductor confers enhanced photocatalytic activity for H 2 generation due to its unique structure. Such structures can be designed and implemented in other transition metal dichalcogenide based ternary materials for enhanced photocatalytic and other applications.