| Summary: | In this work, a facile oxidation strategy was developed to prepare novel tungsten disulfide/tungsten trioxide (WS<sub>2</sub>/WO<sub>3</sub>) heterostructures for adsorbing organic dyes efficiently by combining the hydrophilic property of WO<sub>3</sub> and the superior dye affinity of WS<sub>2</sub>. The structural and elemental properties of the synthesized hybrid materials were systematically investigated, and the results demonstrated the retained flower-like morphology of the primitive WS<sub>2</sub> and the successful introduction of WO<sub>3</sub>. Furthermore, surface properties such as a superior hydrophilicity and negative-charged potential were also demonstrated by a water contact angle characterization combined with a Zeta potential analysis. The performance of the obtained WS<sub>2</sub>/WO<sub>3</sub> hybrid materials for removing Rhodamine B (RhB) from wastewater was evaluated. The results showed that the maximum adsorption capacity of the newly synthesized material could reach 237.1 mg/g. Besides, the adsorption isotherms were also simulated by a statistical physics monolayer model, which revealed the non-horizontal orientation of adsorbates and endothermic physical interaction. Finally, the adsorption mechanism and the recyclability revealed that the partial oxidation strategy could contribute to a higher adsorption capacity by modulating the surface properties and could be applied as a highly efficient strategy to design other transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) heterostructures for removing organic dyes from wastewater.
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