Molybdenum disulfide has emerged as one of the promising materials, particularly as a co-catalyst for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution over the conventional and more-expensive platinum. Herein, we report novel onedimensional/two-dimensional (1D-2D) heterostructures consisting of nitrogen-doped ZnO nanorods coated with defect-rich MoS 2 nanosheets having abundant edge sulfur atoms. The optimized heterostructure consists of 15 wt % of defect-rich MoS 2 nanosheets-coated on N-ZnO showed the highest H 2 evolution of 17.3 mmol h −1 g cat −1 under solar light irradiation. The improved photocatalytic H 2 evolution can be attributed to (i) the in-situ-generated ZnS during the process, which increased the number of interfaces, (ii) the presence of abundant exposed sulfur edge atoms in defect-rich MoS 2 nanosheets, which has strong affinity for H + ions, and (iii) the intimate heterojunction formed between N-ZnO and MoS 2 , which facilitates charge transfer efficiency. Hence, this work offers a promising strategy for the design and development of defect engineered heterostructure photocatalysts for greatly enhanced solar-to-fuel conversion.

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The leaf-templated and oxygen vacancy engineered CaTiO3 showed excellent structural stability but with loss in morphology for the studied binary phase photocatalytic reactions.

In this work, an attempt has been made to strategically and systematically design novel and multifunctional nanocomposite photocatalysts by coupling mesocrystals of CaTiO3 with edge‐sulfur‐atoms‐enriched MoS2 and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) nanosheets. A remarkable enhancement in photocatalytic activity could be evidenced with an optimized content (20 %) of MoS2−RGO nanosheets coupled with CaTiO3 mesocrystals. This nanocomposite showed a 33‐fold enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution in comparison to bare CaTiO3, with apparent quantum efficiencies of 5.4 %, 3.0 % and 17.7 % at 365, 420 and 600 nm monochromatic wavelengths. In addition, the excellent adsorptive degradation of different organic pollutants was also achieved with these photocatalysts, which revealed their multifunctional behavior. The enhanced photocatalytic performance can be accredited mainly to following factors: (i) Intimate contact between constituent materials and efficient charge transfer across the ternary heterojunction, which suppresses photogenerated charge recombination; (ii) The high surface area provides abundant sites for reactant adsorption and further reaction; (iii) Defect‐rich MoS2 with sulfur atoms on the exposed edges provide sticky sites for H+ ions and hence enhance the hydrogen generation. The design strategy employed in this work can be adopted to improve the properties and performance of other mesocrystals, which can lead to the fabrication of low‐cost and multifunctional catalysts for diverse applications.

Photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic hydrogen generation from water splitting by utilizing the visible spectrum of sunlight has been recognized as one of the promising energy conversion applications. Herein, we report the three-dimensional (3D) superstructure of g-C 3 N 4 and reduced graphene oxide embedded with Rh-doped SrTiO 3 nanoparticles as ternary aerogels for efficient hydrogen production. The optimized aerogel exhibits high competency for visible light harvesting due to the unique 3D morphology and shows excellent hydrogen evolution performance with quantum efficiencies of 51.1 and 26.9% at 450 and 600 nm monochromatic wavelengths, respectively. The 3D arrangement of integrated components helps in enhanced light absorption due to multiple reflections of incident light within the system and provides a high surface area with abundant reaction sites. Moreover, the ternary heterojunction facilitates efficient charge transfer owing to the suitable band positions of each component as evidenced by fluorescence lifetime, photocurrent, and impedance spectroscopic measurements, resulting in enhanced photocatalytic performance. In addition, the photoelectrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity reveals the multifunctional nature of the synthesized catalysts. Thus, the hybrid design of the photocatalytic system realizes efficient hydrogen production in suspension and demonstrates the potential of aerogel-based materials as next-generation photocatalysts.