Molybdenum
sulfide has attracted intense attention owing to unique
heteromorphism. A natural molybdenum sulfide shows a semiconductive
2H crystal structure, while another metallic 1T-MoS2 exhibits
a higher catalytic activity. However, the strict synthetic condition
and the metastable property of 1T-MoS2 have limited its
application. Hybrid-phase 1T/2H-MoS2 possesses both higher
catalytic activity than 2H-MoS2 and better thermal/chemical
stability than 1T-MoS2, which is a more promising candidate
in the catalytic field. As for photocatalytic field, 2H-MoS2 has been only used as a cocatalyst
but not as an individual photocatalyst due to its fast electron–hole
recombination level and nonideal surface active site nature. Hybrid-phase
MoS2 would provide a proper solution for individual MoS2 as a photocatalyst because 1T sites can collect photoelectrons
and provide active sites for various reactions. In this work, we report
a hybrid-phase MoS2 synthesized by a simple hydrothermal
method, which is applied to the photocatalytic conversion of a series
of nitroaromatics to aminoaromatics. The reactions are not favorable
with natural 2H-MoS2, which reveals new potential of MoS2 as a noble metal-free photocatalyst.