One-step synthesis of NiTe nanorods coated with few-layers MoS for enhancing photocatalytic activity.

A facile one-step hydrothermal process was developed for fabrication of three-dimensional hierarchical NiTe@MoS heterostructures. A few layers of MoS uniformly grew on the NiTe nanorods, possessing a higher surface area. The strategy was extended to CoTe@MoS heterostructures with a few layers of MoS. The photocatalytic activities of the heterostructures were evaluated by the photodegradation of methylene blue. The composites show strong adsorption ability and much better photocatalytic efficiency in comparison with pure MoS microflowers and NiTe nanorods. Especially, the NiTe@MoS heterostructure with 40 wt% of MoS presents the highest performance in photocatalytic degradation of dye molecules, which is attributed to the formation of hierarchical network between NiTe nanorods and MoS nanosheets. And the possible mechanism of the enhanced photocatalytic activities was discussed.