Surfactant-Assisted Regulation of WS₂/Tourmaline Microstructures for Excellent Photocatalytic Performance

The controllable electrical and optical properties of two-dimensional tungsten disulfide (WS₂) attracted much attention in photocatalysis, but commercial development has been severely restricted by their restacking properties. Surfactant-assisted synthesis techniques can be considered as an effective option to break this bottleneck. In this work, the effect of surfactants including sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS), hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) on the microstructure of WS₂/tourmaline composites prepared by coupled hydrothermal and calcination methods was explored. The WS₂ nanosheets were uniformly deposited on the tourmaline surface with the assistance of 1.0 mmol/L SDBS. Meanwhile, WS₂/Tour-SDBS exhibited the highest rhodamine B (RhB) degradation activity, which was 1.8 and 2.3 times higher than that of photocatalysts prepared with CTAB and PVP under the same conditions, respectively. This study provides a new tactic for the fabrication of high-performance WS₂-based composites.