TY - JOUR
T1 - High Yield Exfoliation of WS2 Crystals into 1-2 Layer Semiconducting Nanosheets and Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution from WS2/CdS Nanorod Composites
AU - Xu, Danyun
AU - Xu, Pengtao
AU - Zhu, Yuanzhi
AU - Peng, Wenchao
AU - Li, Yang
AU - Zhang, Guoliang
AU - Zhang, Fengbao
AU - Mallouk, Thomas E.
AU - Fan, Xiaobin
N1 - Funding Information:
This study is supported by the National Natural Science Funds (Nos. 21676198 and 21403115) and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (No. B06006). The authors acknowledge the National Science Foundation under Grant DMR-1306938.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2018/1/24
Y1 - 2018/1/24
N2 - Monolayer WS2 has interesting properties as a direct bandgap semiconductor, photocatalyst, and electrocatalyst, but it is still a significant challenge to prepare this material in colloidal form by liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE). Here, we report the preparation of 1-2 layer semiconducting WS2 nanosheets in a yield of 18-22 wt % by a modified LPE method that involves preintercalation with substoichometric quantities of n-butyllithium. The exfoliated WS2 nanosheeets are n-type, have a bandgap of ∼1.78 eV, and act as a cocatalyst with CdS nanorods in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution using lactate as a sacrificial electron donor. Up to a 26-fold increase in H2 evolution rate was observed with WS2/CdS hybrids compared with their pure CdS counterpart, and an absorbed photon quantum yield (AQE) of >60% was measured with the optimized photocatalyst.
AB - Monolayer WS2 has interesting properties as a direct bandgap semiconductor, photocatalyst, and electrocatalyst, but it is still a significant challenge to prepare this material in colloidal form by liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE). Here, we report the preparation of 1-2 layer semiconducting WS2 nanosheets in a yield of 18-22 wt % by a modified LPE method that involves preintercalation with substoichometric quantities of n-butyllithium. The exfoliated WS2 nanosheeets are n-type, have a bandgap of ∼1.78 eV, and act as a cocatalyst with CdS nanorods in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution using lactate as a sacrificial electron donor. Up to a 26-fold increase in H2 evolution rate was observed with WS2/CdS hybrids compared with their pure CdS counterpart, and an absorbed photon quantum yield (AQE) of >60% was measured with the optimized photocatalyst.
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U2 - 10.1021/acsami.7b15614
DO - 10.1021/acsami.7b15614
M3 - Article
C2 - 29303245
AN - SCOPUS:85041239063
SN - 1944-8244
VL - 10
SP - 2810
EP - 2818
JO - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
JF - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
IS - 3
ER -