Improved Organic Dye Degradation Using Highly Efficient MXene Composites

Abstract

Over the years, scarcity of fresh potable water has increased the demand for clean water. Meanwhile, with the advent of nanotechnology, the use of nanomaterials for photocatalytic degradation of pollutants in wastewaters has increased. Herein, a new type of nanohybrids of La and Mn co-doped bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) nanoparticles embedded into transition metal carbide sheets (MXene) were prepared by a low-cost double solvent sol-gel method, and investigated for their photocatalytic activity. The photoluminescence results showed that pure BFO has highest electron hole recombination rate as compared to all the co-doped BFO/MXene nanohybrids. The larger surface area and higher electron-hole pair generation rate provides suitable environment for fast photo-degradation of organic molecules. The band gap of the prepared nanohybrids was tuned to 1.96 eV having largest BiFeO3 surface area (147 m2g−1) reported till date. Moreover, the BLFO/MXene and BLFMO-5/Mxene degraded the 92% organic pollutant from water in dark and remaining in light spectrum as compare to undoped BFO/Mxene due to enhancement of the surface area and electron-hole recombination rate upon doping. Therefore, these synthesized nanohybrids could be a promising candidate for photocatalytic applications in future.

Co-existence of magnetic phases in two-dimensional MXene

“…According to first-principles density function theory calculation, the inter-and intra-band transition arise Fermi energy levels for these absorption peaks. [6,27] The UV-vis spectra of La-MXene shown in Figure 6a demonstrates more absorption at longer wavelength near the red shift in the band gap transition compared with pure Ti3C2Tx -MXene.…”

“…[4] Dual nature from metallic to semiconductor and good mechanical to chemical stability shows hydrophilic nature which enhances the application importance of MXene in the area of photocatalysis, co-catalyst [5] sewag purification, polymer composites and energy storage devices, pseudocapacitors catalysis, hydrogen storage, and lithium-ion batteries. [6] Chemical doping of heteroatoms is an efficient method to enhance the electrochemical, optical, electrical, magnetic, mechanical, thermal, photocatalytic, co-catalytic properties, and volumetric capacity of electrode materials. Notably, Y Tang et al, introduced the nitrogen-doped MXene to improve the electrochemical performance by increasing the conductivity of ions and creating surface-active sites, providing Faradaic reactions for additional collective capacity.…”

Application of MXenes in environmental remediation technologies

“…The BGFO-20Sn/MXene nanohybrid demonstrated 100% photocatalytic degradation ability towards CR dye in 120 min with minimum charge-carrier recombination. Similarly, Iqbal et al [ 63 ] hybridized a La, Mn-codoped BiFeO 3 with Ti 3 C 2 T x using a sol–gel method. The constructed composite delivered 92% degradation of CR dye just within 10 min under visible light irradiation.…”