Significant enhancement of photocatalytic activity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes modified WSe2 composite

Flowerlike WSe2 and multi-walled carbon nanotubes modified WSe2 (CNT/WSe2) composite has been successfully synthesized via a facile one-pot solvothermal reaction. The morphologies, structures and photocatalytic activities were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscope, X-ray diffraction, and UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, respectively. Compared to bare WSe2, the characterization results show that the CNT/WSe2 composite exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity in photocatalytic degradation of organic dye methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is attributed to the CNTs can reduce electron-hole pair recombination and efficiently inhibit the aggregation of WSe2 for fully exposing the active edges. In addition, a possible mechanism of CNT/WSe2 composite for degradation of MO molecules is proposed and discussed. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.