Enhanced Heterogeneous Photodegradation of Organic Pollutants by a Visible Light Harvesting CoO@meso–CN@MoS2 Nanocomposites

Abstract

Developing simple and effective synthetic strategies regarding the formation of heterostructure photocatalytic semiconductors remains an intense challenge in research matters. Uniform heterostructure cobalt oxide@meso–CN@MoS2 (CoO@meso–CN@MoS2) photocatalyst exhibits excellent photocatalytic redox performance for pollutant degradation under visible light. By adjusting the weight ratio of CoO@meso–CN and MoS2, we fabricated a CoO@meso–CN@MoS2 heterostructure photocatalyst, and the established heterostructure between CoO@meso–CN and MoS2 was indicated by various physicochemical and morphological characterizations. The photocatalytic response to the fabricated hybrid was determined by rodamine B (RhB), methylene blue (MB), and congo red (CR) degradation in aqueous solution under visible light, and the nanocomposites with a slight content consisting of CoO@meso–CN achieved better catalysis than pure MoS2. This finding confirmed the propriety of this heterostructure as a valuable photocatalyst. The experimental results demonstrated that the apparent reaction rate constant of the 3 wt% CoO@meso–CN modified MoS2 was about two times higher than that of pure MoS2. The present work serves as a new approach for designing highly efficient visible light-induced heterostructure-based photocatalysts for environmental applications in the future.