Nanostructured titanium
dioxide (TiO2) has a potential
platform for the removal of organic contaminants, but it has some
limitations. To overcome these limitations, we devised a promising
strategy in the present work, the heterostructures of TiO2 sensitized by molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanoflowers
synthesized by the mechanochemical route and utilized as an efficient
photocatalyst for methyl orange (MO) degradation. The surface of TiO2 sensitized by MoS2 was comprehensively characterized
by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform–infrared
spectroscopy (FT–IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission
electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS),
energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), UV–vis diffuse reflectance
spectroscopy (UV–vis DRS), photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL),
Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area, and thermogravimetric
analysis (TGA). From XRD results, the optimized MoS2–TiO2 (5.0 wt %) nanocomposite showcases the lowest crystallite
size of 14.79 nm than pristine TiO2 (20 nm). The FT–IR
and XPS analyses of the MoS2–TiO2 nanocomposite
exhibit the strong interaction between MoS2 and TiO2. The photocatalytic results show that sensitization of TiO2 by MoS2 drastically enhanced the photocatalytic
activity of pristine TiO2. According to the obtained results,
the optimal amount of MoS2 loading was assumed to be 5.0
wt %, which exhibited a 21% increment of MO photodegradation efficiency
compared to pristine TiO2 under UV–vis light. The
outline of the overall study describes the superior photocatalytic
performance of 5.0 wt % MoS2–TiO2 nanocomposite
which is ascribed to the delayed recombination by efficient charge
transfer, high surface area, and elevated surface oxygen vacancies.
The context of the obtained results designates that the sensitization
of TiO2 with MoS2 is a very efficient nanomaterial
for photocatalytic applications.