Ti3C2MXene co-catalyst assembled with mesoporous TiO2for boosting photocatalytic activity of methyl orange degradation and hydrogen production

Photocatalytic degradation and hydrogen production using solar energy through semiconductor photocatalysts are deemed to be a powerful approach for solving environmental and energy crisis. However, the biggest challenge in photocatalysis is the efficient separation of photo-induced carriers. To this end, we report that the mesoporous TiO2nanoparticles are anchored on highly conductive Ti3C2MXene co-catalyst by electrostatic self-assembly strategy. The constructed mesoporous TiO2/Ti3C2composites display that the mesoporous TiO2nanoparticles are uniformly distributed on the surface of layer structured Ti3C2nanosheets. More importantly, the as-obtained mesoporous TiO2/Ti3C2composites reveal the significantly enhanced light absorption performance, photo-induced carriers separation and transfer ability, thus boosting the photocatalytic activity. The photocatalytic methyl orange degradation efficiency of mesoporous TiO2/Ti3C2composite with an optimized Ti3C2content (3 wt%) can reach 99.6% within 40 min. The capture experiments of active species confirm that the •O2−and •OH play major role in photocatalytic degradation process. Furthermore, the optimized mesoporous TiO2/Ti3C2composite also shows an excellent photocatalytic H2production rate of 218.85 μmol g–1h–1, resulting in a 5.6 times activity as compared with the pristine mesoporous TiO2nanoparticles. This study demonstrates that the MXene family materials can be applied as highly efficient noble-metal-free co-catalysts in the field of photocatalysis.