Fabrication of TiO2 nanofibers/MXene Ti3C2 nanocomposites for photocatalytic H2 evolution by electrostatic self-assembly

Semiconductor based photocatalytic water splitting as a most bright method to solve the energy crisis has been widely studied in the past decade. Among them, MXene has become the focus of current research as a new, effective and inexpensive promoter-free catalyst. Herein, a novel 1D/2D photocatalyst of TiO2/Ti3C2 is successfully prepared by electrostatic self-assembly technique. The maximum H-2 production rate of TiO2/Ti3C2 nanocomposites is up to 6.979 mmol h(-1) g(-1), which is 3.8 times that of pure TiO2 nanofibers (NFs). This improvement in photocatalytic H-2 production of TiO2/Ti3C2 is originated from the heterogenous interface between TiO2 NFs and Ti3C2 nanosheets. It brings higher photocatalytic efficiency and maintains its cycle H-2 production capacity. There is almost no decrease in photocatalytic H-2 production efficiency after 5 cycles. It is believed that this study can offer an innovative pathway to design high performance and low-cost photocatalytic materials composed of MXene co-catalyst for efficient water splitting H-2 production over semiconductors.