www.cet-journal.com Page 1 Chemical Engineering & Technology Received: May 13, 2019; revised: June 13, 2019; accepted: August 19, 2019 This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the final Version of Record (VOR). This work is currently citable by using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) given below. The final VoR will be published online in Early View as soon as possible and may be different to this Accepted Article as a result of editing. Readers should obtain the final VoR from the journal website shown below when it is published to ensure accuracy of information. The authors are responsible for the content of this Accepted Article. To be cited as: Chem. Eng. Technol. 10.1002/ceat.201900275 Link to final VoR: https://doi.org/10.1002/ceat.201900275 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. A facile method for the synthesis of MoS2/g-C3N4 photocatalyst Duy Huong Truong 1,2 , Vien Vo 1 , Tom Van Gerven 2 , Mumin Enis Leblebici 3 * 1 Department of Chemistry, Quy Nhon University, 170 An Duong Vuong, Quy Nhon city, Binh Dinh province, Vietnam 2 Process Engineering for Sustainable Systems (ProcESS), Department of Chemical Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium 3 KU Leuven Lab4U, Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Agoralaan Building B, B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium *Correspondence: Mumin Enis Leblebici (E-mail: mumienis.leblebici@kuleuven.be), KU Leuven Lab4U, Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Agoralaan Building B, B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium Abstract MoS2/g-C3N4 composite was synthesized by a significantly simpler method using Na2MoO4 and thiourea as precursors, without the need for a hydrothermal or an ultrasound step. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized material was evaluated by the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) in aqueous solution under blue light, and the composites with low content of MoS2 performed better than pure g-C3N4. Using a low-power LED light source, this study resulted in two orders-of-magnitude improvement in the photochemical space-time yield, proving improved energy efficiency and productivity, compared to earlier studies. The degradation pathway of organic pollutants was confirmed by the effects of selective scavengers. Keywords: LED, MoS2/g-C3N4, photocatalysis, visible light. 1. INTRODUCTION Removal of organic pollutants in aqueous media by photodegradation using semiconductors as heterogeneous catalysts has drawn much attention, since this process uses solar radiation as a green energy source and oxygen in the air as an abundant oxidant [1]. However, many available oxide semiconductors can only absorb ultraviolet (UV) light. Therefore, the modifications of oxides that can work efficiently in visible light have been widely investigated [2, 3]. In addition to the oxides, recently, carbon nitride with graphite-like structure (g-C3N4), a metal-free organic semiconductor has allured significant attention as a potential photocatalyst due to its electronic structure with band gap of 2.7 eV and relatively high chemical stability [4]. However, photocatalytic performance of pure g-C3N4 is limited because of its poor absorption in visible region, fast recombination of photo-generated charge carriers and low specific surface area [5]. In order to overcome these disadvantages, various methods have been investigated such as co-polymerization [6, 7], altering different precursors [8, 9] and non-metal doping [10]. Therefore, coupling techniques with other co-catalysts is a promising way to enhance photocatalytic efficiency [11]. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a typical 2D nanomaterial, has received much attention in potential applications such as lithium ion batteries, electronics,