Manganese and oxygen dual-doping MoS2 boosts reduction and adsorption activity toward efficient recovery of gold(I) from thiosulfate solutions

The necessity for application of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) in photocatalytic reduction field required speedy improvement with high reduction and adsorption performance. Here, manganese (Mn) and oxygen (O) dual-doping strategy were taken for demonstrating that enhancing photocatalytic reduction could achieve simultaneous modulation of the reduction and adsorption parameters by optimizing the electronic configuration and hydrophilicity ability in MoS2. Benefiting from the Mn and O dual-doping collective effect, the developed Mn,O-MoS2 exhibited outstanding photocatalytic reduction and recovery performances of gold(I) from thiosulfate leaching solutions with reduction capacity of 1386.98 mg/g and the corresponding recovery of 92.50%. Besides, Mn and O atoms dual doping in MoS2 accelerated the recovery rate, which was 3 folds higher compared with that of MoS2. Experimental and first-principle approaches suggested that the reduction and adsorption ability of MoS2 were strengthened through tuning the electronic structure and surface property with Mn and O dopants: (1) Mn atoms notably enhanced the conductivity and optimized the electronic structure for facilitating the reduction performance; (2) The incorporated O atoms greatly promoted the adsorption of [Au(S2O3)2]3- by improving the affinity of water molecules and Mn,O-MoS2. The work provides a promising strategy to manipulate two-dimensional materials for various applications about catalysts and adsorbent.