Roles of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides as Cocatalysts in Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution and Environmental Remediation

Photocatalysis has attracted great attention due to its useful environmental applications for hazardous pollutants degradation and sustainable hydrogen evolution. Recently, transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) based materials have shown great potential in photocatalysis field. Due to their special two-dimensional layered structure and excellent electrochemical catalysis properties, they can be used as effective cocatalysts and supports to modify semiconductors for enhanced photocatalytic activities. By loading TMDs as cocatalysts, stable junctions could be created to facilitate the photogenerated electrons transfer. Moreover, the exposed edges of TMDs are active for hydrogen evolution or oxygen activation, thus leading to the improved performance for semiconductor/TMD composite in photocatalytic H2 evolution and pollutants degradation. This review will focus on the roles of TMDs as cocatalysts for semiconductors in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution and environmental remediation. We expect our work can provide enriched information to harvest the excellent special properties of TMDs as a platform to fabricate more efficient photocatalysts for solar energy utilization.