Hot Electron-Mediated Photocatalytic Degradation of Ciprofloxacin Using Au-Decorated SrTiO<sub>3</sub>- and Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub> MXene-Based Interfacial Heterostructure Nanoarchitectonics
Sameer Mohanty, Manisha Sharma, Ajay Kumar, Venkata Krishnan
Abstract
Being the most abundant and cleanest form of energy, sunlight is utilized in producing electricity, charging batteries, and more such applications. Though the earth gets a good amount of sunlight on its surface each day, only a small fraction of it gets utilized. It is still a concern for scientists to use the broad spectrum to achieve maximum performance in photocatalysis. In this work, we have developed a series of perovskite oxide (SrTiO 3 )- and MXene (Ti 3 C 2 )-based interfacial heterostructures and decorated them with gold nanoparticles to enable plasmon-mediated electron transfer. These interfacial ternary heterostructures have been successfully utilized for photocatalytic environmental remediation of a colorless pharmaceutical pollutant under natural sunlight irradiation. The remarkable photocatalytic performance of these heterostructures can be attributed to broad-spectrum light harvesting, good charge separation, and quick charge transport. The stability and recyclability of these photocatalysts have also been demonstrated. This work validates that a combination of multi-component interfacial heterostructures can be successfully deployed for plasmon-mediated photocatalysis even under natural sunlight irradiation.