Controllable growth of MoS2 nanosheets on TiO2 burst nanotubes and their photocatalytic activity

MoS2 nanosheets were grown on TiO2 nanotubes by the simple hydrothermal method for the first time. The layer-by-layer growth of MoS2 nanosheets led to a significant increase in the specific surface area of TiO2/MoS2 burst tube composites compared with TiO2 burst tubes, a significantly enhanced ability to separate photo-induced carriers, and synergistic adsorption and visible light catalytic activity of dye molecules. The maximum adsorption (qmax) of MB was 72.46 mg g−1. In addition, 94.1% of MB could be degraded after 30 minutes of visible light irradiation. The microsurface morphology, structure, chemical composition, element valence and band width of TiO2/MoS2 nanocomposites were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). The mechanism of photocatalytic reaction was studied via free radical capture experiments.