Photocatalytic hydrogen production and simultaneous tetracycline degradation by selectively depositing growth of MoS2 on the PbTiO3 (001̅) surface

Among many photocatalysts, the low charge separation efficiency has been an essential reason limiting photocatalytic performance. The heterojunction is a well-established strategy, but the strength of the interfacial electric field constructed by different Fermi energy levels is very limited. In this paper, the simple hydrothermal method is used to selectively deposit growth of MoS2 on the PbTiO3 (001̅) surface thereby constructing S-scheme heterojunctions with interfacial electric fields enhanced by polarization properties and bound charges. The enhanced interfacial electric fields offer a strong motivation for the separation and migration of photogenerated carriers. In addition, the oxygen vacancies and photo deposited Pt on the PbTiO3 (001) surface provide sufficient active sites for hydrogen production, while the petal-like MoS2 on the PbTiO3 (001̅) surface can effectively adsorb pollutants for degradation. In the presence of pollutants (TC) as sacrificial agents, the MoS2/PbTiO3 composites with enhanced interfacial electric fields showed excellent photocatalytic hydrogen production performance with hydrogen productivity of 217.09 µmol g−1 h−1, which is 4.56 times higher than that of pristine PbTiO3 (47.61 µmol g−1 h−1). This study suggests that S-scheme heterojunctions enhanced by polarization properties and bound charges will show significant potential in improving charge separation efficiency.