The synergistic role of ternary combined semiconductors (Nb2O5–MoS2-MO) hetrojunctions in photocatalytic water splitting

The working strategy is to explore the participation effects of both MoS2 and metal oxides on the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance of Nb2O5 precursor material. Combined ternary semiconductors nanocomposites (Nb2O5–MoS2-MO) were synthesized hydrothermally by doping different metal oxides (MO) into initially prepared Nb2O5–MoS2 (NM) composite. Synergistic effects and fast interfacial charge transfer through hetrojunctions were characterized thoroughly using different spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. Characterization mechanisms like XPS, EDX, SEM, XRD, PL, UV–Vis and Raman were used to investigate chemical composition, structural nature, particle size, separation efficiency of electron-hole pairs, band gap narrowing and functional bonds. Raman spectra show the Nb–O stretching mode of the synthesized composites. Dielectric properties of the composites were studied in terms of the dielectric constant, dielectric loss and a.c conductivity characteristics. The incorporation of MoS2 and metal oxides in Nb2O5 significantly reduced optical band gap and electron-hole recombination. This contributes in improving photocatalytic nature of niobium oxide for hydrogen production from water splitting. The composite Nb2O5–MoS2–TiO2 clearly exhibited higher activity in terms of hydrogen generation at the rate of 8.1 mmol/h. •Nb2O5/MoS2 and metal oxides doped Nb2O5/MoS2 composites were synthesized.•Hydrothermal method was used to synthesize all the photocatalytic composites.•Hydrogen evolution rate from water splitting was examined for all the composites.•The study involved instrumental techniques like XRD, SEM, EDX, XPS, PL and Raman.•Photocatalytic, UV–Vis and dielectric properties were also measured.