Nanolayered Heterostructures of N-Doped TiO<sub>2</sub> and N-Doped Carbon for Hydrogen Evolution
Xianglong Kong, Zhenbo Peng, Rui Jiang, Peipei Jia, Jing Feng, Piaoping Yang, Qianqian Chi, Wei Ye, Fuchun Xu, Peng Gao
Abstract
Both doping and compositing in TiO2 are exceedingly effective strategies to overcome the compound’s shortcomings, such as invalid visible-light response and enormous recombination of photogenerated carriers. Herein, a convenient and cost-effective route has been put forward to in situ synthesize nanolayered heterostructure based on N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles and N-doped carbon (N-TiO2/NC) using 2D layered N-MXene (N–Ti3C2Tx) as the template. The as-obtained N-TiO2/NC nanocomposite displays greatly enhanced visible light absorption property, superior carrier separation and transport ability. As a result, the nanolayered N-TiO2/NC heterostructure exhibits a satisfactory H2 evolution rate from water-splitting (102.6 μmol g–1 h–1) under visible-light without any additional cocatalyst. The study provides a new strategy for the synthesis of defective nanoheterostructure and expands the applications of MXene family.