Covalently tethering photosensitizers to catalytically active 1T-MoS2 surfaces holds great promise for the solar-driven hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we report the preparation of two new RuII -complex-functionalized MoS2 hybrids [RuII (bpy)2 (phen)]-MoS2 and [RuII (bpy)2 (py)Cl]-MoS2 . The influence of covalent functionalization of chemically exfoliated 1T-MoS2 with coordinating ligands and RuII 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 RuII -complex-sensitized MoS2 system is highly dependent on the surface extent of photosensitizers and the catalytic activity of functionalized MoS2 . 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 MoS2 system by manipulation of the surface functionalities, which provides a practical guidance for smart design of future dye-sensitized MoS2 hydrogen production devices towards improved the photofuel conversion efficiency.
Keywords: MoS2; hydrogen evolution; nanomaterials; photo-electrochemistry; ruthenium.
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