Synthesis and photocatalytic H₂‐production activity of plasma‐treated Ti₃C₂T_x MXene modified graphitic carbon nitride

Abstract

Plasma processing technology, as a promising method to enhance photocatalytic activity of catalyst, is gradually attracting extensive interest from researchers. However, the main mechanism of plasma‐treated photocatalyst on hydrogen production is not clear. In this work, 2D Ti3C2Tx MXene is selected as a co‐catalyst of graphitic carbon nitride (g‐C3N4), which carries out a plasma treatment (500°C) under N2/H2 atmosphere. Due to plasma treatment, there is a higher proportion Ti–O functional groups on surface of layered Ti3C2Tx MXene, especially for Ti4+. The obtained g‐C3N4/p‐Ti3C2Tx photocatalyst with sandwich‐like structure shows an enhanced photocatalytic activity. The rate of hydrogen generation of CN/pTC3.0 sample without Pt co‐catalyst is 25.4 and 2.4 times that of pure g‐C3N4 and CN/TC3.0 samples, respectively. The improved photocatalytic activity is attributed to presence of Ti4+ due to plasma treatment, which can capture photo‐induced electron from g‐C3N4 and improve the separation of electrons and holes after visible light irradiation. The cyclic hydrogen production of the photocatalyst demonstrates good photocatalytic stability. In addition, this method of plasma treatment under N2/H2 atmosphere is feasible to develop a high‐performance co‐catalyst, which can be extended to other photocatalysts with two‐dimensional structure for photocatalytic water‐splitting applications.

Novel Architecture Titanium Carbide (Ti3C2Tx) MXene Cocatalysts toward Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production: A Mini-Review

“…They replaced the (-F) terminations by (-O)/(-OH) terminations by the hydrothermal treatment, and found that (-O)/(-OH) terminations play a notable role for photocatalytic activity. This result was consistent with the previous finding by Sun et al [56], who observed significant enhancement of H 2 production ( [63]. Based on analyzed results by Raman, FTIR, and XPS, Xu et al observed an increase of Ti-O with a decrease of Ti-C, Ti-F, and Ti-OH.…”

Hot-electron-assisted S-scheme heterojunction of tungsten oxide/graphitic carbon nitride for broad-spectrum photocatalytic H2 generation

“…The twin peaks at 284.7 (C-C bonds) and 288.0 eV (sp 2 -hybridized carbon atoms (N-C=N)) were found in the high-resolution C 1s XPS profile of HCN (Fig. 2(a)) [33,34]. The peaks at 398.5, 399.6, 400.8, and 404.4 eV in the high-resolution N 1s XPS profile of HCN (Fig.…”

MXenes as Emerging Materials: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications

“…MXene (transition metal carbide, nitride, and carbonitride), a novel class of 2D materials, was first reported in 2011 and has steadily grown in popularity as a photocatalytic material [ 120 ]. MXene was initially investigated for solar fuel conversion and storage devices (i.e., supercapacitors and batteries) owing to its large theoretical gravimetric capacitance and super conductivity [ 30 , 121 , 122 ].…”