Systematic investigation of MoS2-metal sulfides (Metal = In, Sn, Cu, Cd) heterostructure via metal-sulfur bond for photocatalytic CO2 reduction

Heterojunctions between MoS2 and metal sulfides (Metal = In, Sn, Cu, Cd) were successfully constructed via the metal-sulfur bond, and their application of CO2 photoreduction into chemical values could address the problem of global warming effectively. Among all MoS2/metal sulfides, the same lamellar morphology between MoS2 and In2S3 could be ascribed for the high photocatalytic performance, which revealed the high specific surface area and benefitted for the generation of build-in electric field, thus leading to the outstanding separation and migration ability. In the opposite, the dissatisfactory photoreduction performance was emerged on the heterostructure between rod-like morphology of CdS and lamellar MoS2. Moreover, the feature of small gap between valence band minimum and Fermi level in In2S3 was remained in MoS2/In2S3 composite, which could promote more carriers to be excited. Hence, the optimal MoS2/In2S3 composite reached 10.09 μmol·h−1·g−1 of CO, 68.41 μmol·h−1·g−1 of CH4 and 6.66 μmol·h−1·g−1 of CH3OH, and the mix-coordination of CO2 adsorption and the carbene pathway over MoS2/In2S3 was revealed via in-situ DRIFTS.