Construction and visible-light-photocatalysis of a novel ternary heterostructure BiOI/(001)TiO <sub>2</sub> /Ti <sub>3</sub> C <sub>2</sub>
Ke Tao, Shuyi Shen, Kun Yang, Daohui Lin
Abstract
Abstract Constructing effective heterojunctions between semiconductors and appropriate cocatalysts and exposing highly active crystal facets have been considered an effective approach to obtain efficient photocatalysts. Herein, a novel BiOI/(001)TiO 2 /Ti 3 C 2 (BTT) hybrid was for the first time synthesized by in situ growing (001)TiO 2 nanosheets on a 2D MXene nanomaterial (Ti 3 C 2 ) and subsequent deposition of flower-like nanoflake BiOI on the obtained (001)TiO 2 /Ti 3 C 2 hybrid. The BTT hybrid exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance for degradation of Rhodamine B under visible light irradiation, with the highest degradation rate being 6.26, 1.72, and 1.35 times of that of a pure BiOI, BiOI/TiO 2 hybrid, and BiOI/Ti 3 C 2 hybrid, respectively. The staggeringly enhanced photoactivity of BTT was attributed to the separation of photogenerated carriers by a multiple charge transfer channels because of the formed p-n and Schottky double junctions. This study demonstrates that (001)TiO 2 /Ti 3 C 2 obtained by simple hydrothermal oxidation of Ti 3 C 2 can be a good cocatalyst for fabricating excellent visible-light-driven photocatalyst.