In-situ growth behavior of FAPbBr3 on two-dimensional materials for photocatalytic reaction to controllable products

Abstract Constructing mixed dimensional materials have been regarded as an outstanding approach to maximum the advantages from materials of different dimensions. In this work, we prepared a mixed dimensional photocatalyst based on Formamidinium lead bromide (FAPbBr3 ) perovskite and 2D materials (2DMs). The aim of this work is to utilize distributions of the active sites in 2DMs, through growing FAPbBr 3 on the different position of 2DMs, the concentration of photogenerated charges is manipulated, thus conducting different reactions. A pre-treatment using HBr to increase the unsaturated bonds in MoS2 presents significant influence on the FAPbBr3 growth and its photocatalytic product. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) confirm that the perovskite nanoparticles were well loaded on the 2D materials. The photocatalytic process and the heterojunction arrangement are demonstrated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and surface photovoltage microscopy (SPVM). By adjusting the weight ratios and growth of FAPbBr3 on the top of 2DMs, the optimized composite photocatalyst (with 30 wt% of FAPbBr3) exhibits remarkable photoactivity for oxidation of benzyl alcohol into benzaldehyde (30 wt% FAPbBr3@WS2 performed 75.9% conversion in 4 h, approximately 9-fold than the pure 2DMs). Meanwhile, by growing FAPbBr3 on the edge of 2DMs, benzoic acid is obtained as the product. Although longer reaction time is needed, the photocatalyst performs outstanding activity (30 wt% FAPbBr 3@MoS2 reached 84.5% conversion in 5 h).