In-situ construction of ternary TiC MXene@TiO/ZnInS composites for highly efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.

Facing the demand of cleaning energy, the development of efficient photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution is a promising way to realize solar-to-chemical energy conversion for solving energy crisis. Hence, a novel hierarchical TiC MXene@TiO/ZnInS photocatalyst with rapid charge transfer channels was constructed by two-step hydrothermal for efficient hydrogen production, adopting hydrothermal oxidation to in-situ synthesize TiC MXene embedded with TiO nanosheets (M@TiO), which was applied to load ZnInS (ZIS). The hybridized photocatalyst with optimized ZIS amount had a hydrogen generation rate of 1185.8 μmol/g/h, which was higher than that of M@TiO and pure ZIS. That was originated from the outstanding light harvesting of ZIS and TiC, sufficient active sites of TiC, intimate interfacial contact, and efficient separation and transfer of photogenerated charges via heterojunction. The favorable and rapid charge transfer routes included type-II heterojunction between ZIS and TiO nanosheets, Schottky junction of TiC/semiconductor, and metallic TiC with high conductivity. This work revealed the Schottky junction forming between ZIS and TiC, and hierarchical M@TiO could be served as advantageous platform and efficient cocatalyst to construct MXene-based photocatalyst.