Potassium Poly(heptazine imide) Coupled with Ti3C2 MXene-Derived TiO2 as a Composite Photocatalyst for Efficient Pollutant Degradation

Binbin Chen; Weiwei Lu; Peng Xu; Kaisheng Yao

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c00150

Potassium Poly(heptazine imide) Coupled with Ti₃C₂ MXene-Derived TiO₂ as a Composite Photocatalyst for Efficient Pollutant Degradation

ACS Omega. 2023 Mar 20;8(12):11397-11405. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c00150. eCollection 2023 Mar 28.

Authors

Binbin Chen¹, Weiwei Lu¹, Peng Xu¹, Kaisheng Yao¹

Affiliation

¹ School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmaceutics, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang, Henan 471003, China.

Abstract

The photocatalytic degradation of pollutants is an effective and sustainable way to solve environmental problems, and the key is to develop an efficient, low-cost, and stable photocatalyst. Polymeric potassium poly(heptazine imide) (K-PHI), as a new member of the carbon nitride family, is a promising candidate but is characterized by a high charge recombination rate. To solve this problem, K-PHI was in-situ composited with MXene Ti₃C₂-derived TiO₂ to construct a type-II heterojunction. The morphology and structure of composite K-PHI/TiO₂ photocatalysts were characterized via different technologies, including TEM, XRD, FT-IR, XPS, and UV-vis reflectance spectra. Robust heterostructures and tight interactions between the two components of the composite were verified. Furthermore, the K-PHI/TiO₂ photocatalyst showed excellent activity for Rhodamine 6G removal under visible light illumination. When the weight percent of K-PHI in the original mixture of K-PHI and Ti₃C₂ was set to 10%, the prepared K-PHI/TiO₂ composite photocatalyst shows the highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency as high as 96.3%. The electron paramagnetic resonance characterization indicated that the^·OH radical is the active species accounting for the degradation of Rhodamine 6G.