Enhanced photocatalytic activity of Cs4PbBr6/WS2 hybrid nanocomposite

Photocatalytic processes are among the prime means for mitigating the pollution caused by toxic effluents. In this context, photocatalysis presents a promising path and undergoing rapid evolution. Halide perovskites (HPs) are excellent candidates due to their negative conduction band minimum and the low work function that are essential for photocatalysis. Interestingly, HPs performance significantly improves by introducing transitional-metal dichalcogenides as a co-catalyst, which enables suppressed charge recombination. Here we investigate the photocatalytic performance of Cs4PbBr6/WS2 nanocomposites towards organic dye degradation under visible light illumination. We found that the Cs4PbBr6/WS2 nanostructures significantly increase the degradation rate of methylene blue compared to pristine Cs4PbBr6 nanocrystals. The transient absorption measurements reveal charge transfer from Cs4PbBr6 to WS2. The results of our study imply that the boosted photocatalytic performance of the nanocomposites is due to the reduced carrier recombination. Our findings pave the way for the implementation of Cs4PbBr6/WS2 nanocomposites as superior photocatalysts.