Fabrication of TiO2 nanofibers/MXene Ti3C2 nanocomposites for photocatalytic H2 evolution by electrostatic self-assembly

Abstract

Semiconductor based photocatalytic water splitting as a most bright method to solve the energy crisis has been widely studied in the past decade. Among them, MXene has become the focus of current research as a new, effective and inexpensive promoter-free catalyst. Herein, a novel 1D/2D photocatalyst of TiO2/Ti3C2 is successfully prepared by electrostatic self-assembly technique. The maximum H2 production rate of TiO2/Ti3C2 nanocomposites is up to 6.979 mmol h−1 g−1, which is 3.8 times that of pure TiO2 nanofibers (NFs). This improvement in photocatalytic H2 production of TiO2/Ti3C2 is originated from the heterogenous interface between TiO2 NFs and Ti3C2 nanosheets. It brings higher photocatalytic efficiency and maintains its cycle H2 production capacity. There is almost no decrease in photocatalytic H2 production efficiency after 5 cycles. It is believed that this study can offer an innovative pathway to design high performance and low-cost photocatalytic materials composed of MXene co-catalyst for efficient water splitting H2 production over semiconductors.