Designing Efficient MoS₂/g-C₃N₄ Hybrid Photocatalysts by Regulating the Interlayer Spacing of MoS₂

g-C₃N₄ as an appealing photocatalyst has received much attention due to its abundance, nontoxicity, and unique photoelectric properties. However, bare g-C₃N₄ usually suffers from restricted light absorbance and serious carriers recombination. The key issue of boosting the photocatalytic performance of the g-C₃N₄ lies in constructing hybrids for better optical and electrical effects. Here, the MoS₂ with different interlayer spacing is integrated with g-C₃N₄ via calcination and hydrothermal methods to form the high-performance MoS₂/g-C₃N₄ hybrid photocatalyst. Optimized energy-band alignment with g-C₃N₄ is realized through regulating the interlayer spacing of MoS₂, achieving improved carriers separation efficiency. In addition, the broadband absorption and rich active sites are also achieved here. As a result, the rationally designed MoS₂/g-C₃N₄ composite (the MoS₂ interlayer spacing: 1.02 nm) exhibits the dominant photocatalytic performance (hydrogen production rate: 1281 μmol/h/g). This work opens a new road to realize a proper energy-band alignment with g-C₃N₄ for high performance photocatalytic activity.