Construction and visible-light-photocatalysis of a novel ternary heterostructure BiOI/(001)TiO2/Ti3C2

Constructing effective heterojunctions between semiconductors and appropriate cocatalysts and exposing highly active crystal facets have been considered an effective approach to obtain efficient photocatalysts. Herein, a novel BiOI/(001)TiO2/Ti3C2 (BTT) hybrid was for the first time synthesized by in situ growing (001)TiO2 nanosheets on a 2D MXene nanomaterial (Ti3C2) and subsequent deposition of flower-like nanoflake BiOI on the obtained (001)TiO2/Ti3C2 hybrid. The BTT hybrid exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance for degradation of Rhodamine B under visible light irradiation, with the highest degradation rate being 6.26, 1.72, and 1.35 times of that of a pure BiOI, BiOI/TiO2 hybrid, and BiOI/Ti3C2 hybrid, respectively. The staggeringly enhanced photoactivity of BTT was attributed to the separation of photogenerated carriers by a multiple charge transfer channels because of the formed p-n and Schottky double junctions. This study demonstrates that (001)TiO2/Ti3C2 obtained by simple hydrothermal oxidation of Ti3C2 can be a good cocatalyst for fabricating excellent visible-light-driven photocatalyst.