Investigating the effect of MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunction to enhance the decomposition of organic pollutants under visible light irradiation

In this study, the MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunctions were prepared by a hydrothermal and studied their basic properties. The prepared catalyst’s crystal structure, chemical composition, optical properties and morphological analysis were analyzed through XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM, UV–Vis DRS and PL analysis. The photocatalytic performance of the synthesized catalyst was assessed with Methylene Blue (MB). The MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunctions exhibited superior photocatalytic efficacy, achieving an efficiency of 96.7%, outperforming both MoS₂ (82.7%) and SnS₂ (43.8%). Moreover, the MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunction displayed the highest photodegradation efficiency (expressed as Kapp) with a rate constant of 0.0344, in contrast to MoS₂ (0.0185) and SnS₂ (0.0060). The enhancement can be ascribed to a synergistic impact that substantially diminishes the recombination of electrons and holes generated by light, simultaneously enhancing the absorption of visible light. Further, the stability of MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunction catalysts was performed by five consequent cycles, where MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunction shows excellent stability after five cycles. Then, the possible MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunction photocatalytic reaction mechanism was explained based on the catalytic experimental results. The current study was demonstrated that the MoS₂–SnS₂ heterojunction promising material for future photocatalysts.