Flexible, recoverable, and efficient photocatalysts: MoS2/TiO2 heterojunctions grown on amorphous carbon-coated carbon textiles

Most traditional powder photocatalysts are not easily recovered. Herein, we report a flexible and recoverable photocatalyst with superior photocatalytic activity, in which MoS₂/TiO₂ heterojunctions are grown on amorphous carbon-coated carbon textiles (CT@C-MoS₂/TiO₂). Recoverable CT@C-MoS₂/TiO₂ textile was used to degrade 10 mg L⁻¹ rhodamine B, leading to a degradation rate of up to 98.8 % within 30 min. Such a degradation rate is much higher than that of most of the reported studies. A density functional theory (DFT) calculation results illustrate charge transfer mechanism inside TiO₂-C, MoS₂-C, and MoS₂/TiO₂ heterojunctions, which shows that CT@C-MoS₂/TiO₂ textile with three electron separation channels has a high photogenerated carrier separation rate, which remarkably enhances the photocatalytic activity. Our work provides a novel strategy to design an efficient and recoverable photocatalyst with high activity.