Hydrogen has been regarded as the ideal energy for the future owing to its high energy density and clean combustion processes. Sustainable production of hydrogen from photocatalytic water splitting by utilizing solar energy is undoubtedly a promising strategy to solve the increasingly serious energy shortage and environmental pollution issues. Herein, we report a highly efficient monolayer MoS2 quantum dots decorated polymer photocatalyst that was synthesized by controllable in-situ crystallization of MQDs on polyimide (PI) under hydrothermal condition without using toxic solvent. Characterization results confirmed that the growth of MoS2 quantum dots (MQDs) on the surface of PI did not change the skeleton structure of PI but increased the number of unsaturated sulfur atoms as active sites for hydrogen production. The investigations for the optical and electronic properties of MQDs/PI composites revealed that MQDs on the surface of PI indeed enhanced the absorption of visible light and suppressed the radiative recombination of charge carriers, thus resulting in an excellent photocatalytic activity of MQDs/PI photocatalyst for hydrogen production from aqueous solution containing methanol (10 vol. %) as the sacrificial agent of the hole under light irradiation. This work provides a new promising strategy to the synthesis of quantum dot co-catalyst on the polymer photocatalyst for improving its activity.

Solar-driven MoS2 quantum dots decorated π conjugated photocatalyst for high efficient hydrogen production

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.