In situ construction of protonated g-C3N4/Ti3C2 MXene Schottky heterojunctions for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production

By Haotian Xu, Rong Xiao, Jingran Huang, Yan Jiang, Cheng-Xiao Zhao, Xiaofei Yang. Chinese Journal of Catalysis, 2021

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Abstract Converting sustainable solar energy into hydrogen energy over semiconductor-based photocatalytic materials provides an alternative to fossil fuel consumption. However, efficient photocatalytic splitting of water to realize carbon-free hydrogen production remains a challenge. Heterojunction photocatalysts with well-defined dimensionality and perfectly matched interfaces are promising for achieving highly efficient solar-to-hydrogen conversion. Herein, we report the fabrication of a novel type of protonated graphitic carbon nitride (PCN)/Ti3C2 MXene heterojunctions with strong interfacial interactions. As expected, the two-dimensional (2D) PCN/2D Ti3C2 MXene interface heterojunction achieves a highly improved hydrogen evolution rate (2181 μmol·g−1) in comparison with bulk g-C3N4 (393 μmol·g−1) and protonated g-C3N4 (816 μmol·g−1). The charge-regulated surfaces of PCN and the accelerated charge transport at the face-to-face 2D/2D Schottky heterojunction interface are the major contributors to the excellent hydrogen evolution performance of the composite photocatalyst.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4916fe98f66348858024b10b81acec47ca1896fb