Facile Synthesis of Heterostructured WS(2)/Bi(2)MoO(6) as High-Performance Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalysts

In this paper, novel WS(2)/Bi(2)MoO(6) heterostructured photocatalysts were successfully fabricated via a facile solvothermal growth method using pre-exfoliated layered WS(2) nanoslices as a substrate. The structure, morphology, and optical properties of the as-prepared WS(2)/Bi(2)MoO(6) samples were characterized by XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM (HRTEM), and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS). Results confirmed the existence of an excellent nanojunction interface between layered WS(2) nanoslices and Bi(2)MoO(6) nanoflakes. Under visible light (>420 nm), the WS(2)/Bi(2)MoO(6) composites exhibit significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity compared with pure Bi(2)MoO(6) toward the decomposition of rhodamine B (RhB). Meanwhile, the active species trapping experiments indicated that holes (h(+)) were the main active species during the photocatalytic reaction. The enhanced photocatalytic performance can be ascribed to the effective light harvesting, fast photogenerated electron–hole pairs separation, and excellent charge carrier transport of the WS(2)/Bi(2)MoO(6) heterostructures. Moreover, the prepared WS(2)/Bi(2)MoO(6) composites also show good structural and activity stability in repeatability experiments.