Fabrication of g-C3N4/Ti3C2 composite and its visible-light photocatalytic capability for ciprofloxacin degradation

Photocatalytic water treatment is an eco-friendly technique for organic pollutants degradation. In this work, a novel photocatalyst, g-C3N4/Ti3C2 (CNTC) composite, was prepared by an evaporation-induced self-assembly method. In the CNTC composite, schottky heterojunction was successfully formed between two-dimensional (2D) g-C3N4 and Ti3C2 Nano sheets, which suppressed the recombination of electron-hole pairs and provided better photo-generated charge separation and migration performance. CNTC displayed obvious red-shift to visible region with the absorption edge of 515 nm compared to g-C3N4 (450 nm). Its photocurrent was 2.2 mu A.cm(-1) under visible light irradiation, which was 2.75 times higher than that of g-C3N4. The CNTC composite exhibited enhanced photocatalytic capability for ciprofloxacin (CIP) degradation than g-C3N4. The pseudo-first-order kinetic constant of CIP decomposition on CNTC was 2.2 times greater than that of g-C3N4 under the visible-light irradiation with wavelength more than 400 nm. The active species trapping experiments indicated that h(+) and center dot O-2(-) played critical roles in this photocatalytic process.