Tuning the Photo-electrochemical Performance of Ru -Sensitized Two-Dimensional MoS.

Covalently tethering photosensitizers to catalytically active 1T-MoS surfaces holds great promise for the solar-driven hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we report the preparation of two new Ru -complex-functionalized MoS hybrids [Ru (bpy) (phen)]-MoS and [Ru (bpy) (py)Cl]-MoS . The influence of covalent functionalization of chemically exfoliated 1T-MoS with coordinating ligands and Ru complexes on the HER activity and photo-electrochemical performance of this dye-sensitized system was studied systematically. We find that the photo-electrochemical performance of this Ru -complex-sensitized MoS system is highly dependent on the surface extent of photosensitizers and the catalytic activity of functionalized MoS . The latter was strongly affected by the number and the kind of functional groups. Our results underline the tunability of the photovoltage generation in this dye-sensitized MoS system by manipulation of the surface functionalities, which provides a practical guidance for smart design of future dye-sensitized MoS hydrogen production devices towards improved the photofuel conversion efficiency.