Chlorosome‐Like Molecular Aggregation of Chlorophyll Derivative on Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>T<i><sub>x</sub></i> MXene Nanosheets for Efficient Noble Metal‐Free Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution
Yuanlin Li, Xin Chen, Yuliang Sun, Xing Meng, Yohan Dall’Agnese, Gang Chen, Chunxiang Dall’Agnese, Hangchen Ren, Shin‐ichi Sasaki, Hitoshi Tamiaki, Xiaofeng Wang
Abstract
Abstract Efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in the visible‐to‐near infrared region at a low cost remains a challenging issue. This work demonstrates the fabrication of organic‐inorganic composites by deposition of supramolecular aggregates of a chlorophyll derivative, namely, zinc methyl 3‐devinyl‐3‐hydroxymethyl‐pyropheophorbide a (Chl) on the surface of Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene with 2D accordion‐like morphology. This composite material is employed as noble metal‐free catalyst in photocatalytic HER under the white light illumination, where Chl serves as a small molecule organic semiconductor component instead of ordinary inorganic and polymer organic semiconductors such as TiO 2 and g‐C 3 N 4 , and Ti 3 C 2 T x serves as a co‐catalyst. Different composition ratios of Chl/Ti 3 C 2 T x are compared for their light‐harvesting ability, morphology, charge transfer efficiency, and photocatalytic performance. The best HER performance is found to be as high as 52 ± 5 µmol h −1 g cat −1 after optimization. Such a large HER activity is attributed to the efficient light harvesting followed by exciton transfer in Chl aggregates and the resultant charge separation at the interface of Chl/Ti 3 C 2 T x .