Oxygen-incorporated MoS2 catalyst for remarkable enhancing piezocatalytic H2 evolution and degradation of organic pollutant

A highly efficient piezocatalyst of oxygen-incorporated MoS 2 (O-MoS 2 ) was designed and successfully synthesized via facile modulation of hydrothermal process temperature method. Remarkably, a superior piezocatalytic H 2 evolution rate of 46.1 μmol·g −1 ·h −1 in pure water and 921.0 μmol·g −1 ·h −1 in methanol solution is obtained on optimal O-MoS 2 -180 (with a hydrothermal process temperature of 180 °C), outperforming pristine MoS 2 and most of the reported other catalysts. Moreover, piezocatalytic activity of O-MoS 2 toward the degradation of organic pollutants depends on hydrothermal temperatures. The suitable temperature of O-MoS 2 -180 presents dramatically excellent piezocatalytic capacity compared with the pristine MoS 2 for degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye. The reaction rate constant of O-MoS 2 -180 reaches to 54.6 × 10 −3  min −1 , which is nearly 18 and 4-folds in contrast with pristine MoS 2 and O-MoS 2 -140 (with a hydrothermal process temperature of 140 °C), respectively. Simultaneously, it also manifests that O-MoS 2 -180 endows relatively high degradation efficiency (84.6% within 30 min) and excellent stability. Moreover, it is also demonstrated that optimal O-MoS 2 can dramatically promote charge carriers transport and separation. Furthermore, our theoretical calculation results suggest that the oxygen-incorporated can modulate the surface electronic state, enhance active sites as well as optimize the hydrogen adsorption Gibbs free energy of MoS 2 , thus extremely boosting piezocatalytic efficiency. Ultimately, an innovative piezocatalytic mechanism is proposed to reveal and expound the relationship between piezocatalytic property and oxygen-incorporated role. Graphical abstract