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

Xianku Wang; Kaibin Cui; Yuqin Zhao; Ming Hao; Liang Bian; Mingming Wang; Fei Wang

doi:10.3390/molecules29194555

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

Molecules. 2024 Sep 25;29(19):4555. doi: 10.3390/molecules29194555.

Authors

Xianku Wang^{1

2}, Kaibin Cui^{1

2}, Yuqin Zhao^{1

2}, Ming Hao^{1

2}, Liang Bian^{3

4}, Mingming Wang^{1

2}, Fei Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials for Ecological Environment and Information, Hebei University of Technology, Ministry of Education, Tianjin 300130, China.
² Institute of Power Source and Ecomaterials Science, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Environment-Friendly Energy Materials, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China.
⁴ School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: photocatalysis; surfactant; tourmaline; tungsten disulfide.

Grants and funding

This study was financially supported by the Central Government Guiding Local Science and Technology Development Fund Projects (No. 236Z4108G), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51874115), the Open Project of the State Key Laboratory of Environment-Friendly Energy Materials (No. 22kfhg09), the Open Project of the Key Laboratory of Solid Waste Treatment and Resource Recycling of the Ministry of Education (No. 22kfgk01), the Youth Talent Support Program of Hebei Province, the Giant Plan Innovation Team Project of Hebei Province, and the Excellent Young Scientist Foundation of Hebei Province, China (No. E2018202241).