Despite pioneering as the holy grail in photocatalysts, abundant reports have demonstrated that g-C₃N₄ performs poor photocatalytic activity due to its high recombination rate of photo-induced charge carriers. Many efforts have been conducted to overcome this limitation in which the semiconductor–semiconductor coupling strategies toward heterojunction formation were considered as the easiest but the most effective method. Herein, a one-pot solid-state reaction of thiourea and sodium molybdate as precursors at different temperatures under N₂ gas was applied for preparing composites of MoS₂/g-C₃N₄. The physicochemical characterization of the final products determines the variation in contents of components (MoS₂ and g-C₃N₄) via the increase of synthesis temperature. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of the MoS₂/g-C₃N₄ composites was evaluated by the degradation of Rhodamine B in an aqueous solution under visible light. Therein, composites synthesized at 500 °C showed the best photocatalytic performance with a degradation efficiency of 90%, much higher than that of single g-C₃N₄. The significant improvement in photocatalytic performance is attributed to the enhancement in light-harvesting and extension in photo-induced charge carriers’ lifetime of composites which are originated from the synergic effect between the components. Besides, the photocatalytic mechanism is demonstrated to well-fit into the S-scheme pathway with apparent evidences.

The conventional solid-state reaction suffers from low diffusivity, high energy consumption, and uncontrolled morphology. These limitations are competed by the presence of water in solution route reaction. Herein, based on concept of combining above methods, we report a facile solid-state reaction conducted in water vapor at low temperature along with calcium doping for modifying lithium vanadate as anode material for lithium-ion batteries. The optimized material, delivers a superior specific capacity of 543.1, 477.1, and 337.2 mAh g⁻¹ after 200 and 1000 cycles at current densities of 100, 1000 and 4000 mA g⁻¹, respectively, which is attributed to the contribution of pseudocapacitance. In this work, we also use experimental and theoretical calculation to demonstrate that the enhancement of doped lithium vanadate is attributed to particles confinement of droplets in water vapor along with the surface and structure variation of calcium doping effect.

The demand for well-designed nanostructured composites with enhanced electrochemical performance for lithium-ion batteries electrode materials has been emerging. In order to improve the electrochemical performance of MoS₂-based anode materials, MoS₂ nanosheets integrated with g-C₃N₄ (MoS₂/g-C₃N₄ composite) was synthesized by a facile heating treatment from the precursors of thiourea and sodium molybdate at 550 °C under N₂ gas flow. The structure and composition of MoS₂/g-C₃N₄ were confirmed by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and elemental analysis. The lithium storage capability of the MoS₂/g-C₃N₄ composite was evaluated, indicating high capacity and stable cycling performance at 1 C (A·g⁻¹) with a reversible capacity of 1204 mA·h·g⁻¹ for 200 cycles. This result is believed the role of g-C₃N₄ as a supporting material to accommodate the volume change and improve charge transport for nanostructured MoS₂. Additionally, the contribution of the pseudocapacitive effect was also calculated to further clarify the enhancement in Li-ion storage performance of the composite.

MoS₂/rGO composites were synthesized by hydrothermal method from the precursors of MoS₂ and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) prepared in the former steps. The influence of the synthesis conditions including hydrothermal temperature and mass ratio of MoS₂ to rGO on the structure, morphology, and optical absorption capacity of the MoS₂/rGO composites was systematically investigated using physicochemical characterizations. The photocatalytic performance of as-prepared samples was investigated on the degradation of Rhodamine B under visible light, in which, the composites obtained at hydrothermal temperature of 180C and MoS₂/rGO mass ratio of 4/1 exhibited the highest photodegradation efficiency of approx. 80 after 4 hours of reaction. This enhancement in photocatalytic behaviour of composites could be assigned to the positive effect of rGO in life time expansion of photoinduced electronsholes.