Nitrogen doped graphene oxide modified WSe2 nanorods for visible light photocatalysis

Nitrogen doped graphene oxide (NG) modified WSe 2 nanorod composites (WSe 2 /NG) were prepared by a hydrothermal synthesis route. The synthesized samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy(DRS) and elemental analysis . Using methylene blue (MB) as a target organic dye, WSe 2 /NG nanocomposites exhibited significant enhancement in photocatalytic degradation of MB under visible light irradiation compared with WSe 2 . That was mainly attributed to the strong adsorption of MB, excellent electrical conductivity and charge separation features of the NG, leading to effectively restrained electron-hole pair recombination of WSe 2 nanorods. Among the hybrid photocatalysts , WSe 2 /50NG (50 wt% of NG) exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity with a rate constant of 0.0572 min −1 for the degradation of the MB in aqueous solution under visible light irradiation, and the removal efficiency reached 99.3% which was 2.4 times higher than that of WSe 2 . In addition, WSe 2 /NG also showed higher stability and good reusability.