Facile preparation of metallic 1T phase molybdenum selenide as cocatalyst coupled with graphitic carbon nitride for enhanced photocatalytic H production.

Low-cost, highly active and efficient alternative co-catalysts that can replace precious metals such as Au and Pt are urgently needed for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we show that 1T phase MoSe can act as the co-catalyst in the 1T-MoSe/g-CN composites and we synthesize this composite by a one-step hydrothermal method to promote photocatalytic H generation. Our prepared 1T-MoSe/g-CN composite exhibits highly enhanced photocatalytic H production compared to that of g-CN nanosheets (NSs) only. The 7 wt%-1T-MoSe/g-CN composite presents a considerably improved photocatalytic HER rate (6.95 mmol·h·g), approximately 90 times greater than that of pure g-CN (0.07 mmol·h g). Moreover, under illumination at λ = 370 nm, the apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of the 7 wt%-1T-MoSe/g-CN composite reaches 14.0%. Furthermore, the 1T-MoSe/g-CN composites still maintain outstanding photocatalytic HER stability.