High-throughput Production of ZnO-MoS₂-Graphene Heterostructures for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen...

High-throughput production of highly efficient photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution remains a considerable challenge for materials scientists. Here, we produced extremely uniform high-quality graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) nanoplatelets through the electrochemical-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation, out of which we subsequently fabricated MoS₂/graphene van der Waals heterostructures. Ultimately, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were deposited into these two-dimensional heterostructures to produce an artificial ZnO/MoS₂/graphene nanocomposite. This new composite experimentally exhibited an excellent photocatalytic efficiency in hydrogen evolution under the sunlight illumination ( λ > 400   n m ), owing to the extremely high electron mobilities in graphene nanoplatelets and the significant visible-light absorptions of MoS₂. Moreover, due to the synergistic effects in MoS₂ and graphene, the lifetime of excited carriers increased dramatically, which considerably improved the photocatalytic efficiency of the ZnO/MoS₂/graphene heterostructure. We conclude that the novel artificial heterostructure presented here shows great potential for the high-efficient photocatalytic hydrogen generation and the high throughput production of visible-light photocatalysts for industrial applications.