Titanium carbide sealed cadmium sulfide quantum dots on carbon, oxygen-doped boron nitride for enhanced and durable photochemical carbon dioxide reduction

Zhangfeng Shen; Yang Yang; Yuji Li; Xiaohua Cheng; Huayang Zhang; Xuhui Zou; Ming Qiu; Hong Huang; Hu Pan; Qineng Xia; Zhigang Ge; Yongyong Cao; Jing Gao; Yangang Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.03.139

Titanium carbide sealed cadmium sulfide quantum dots on carbon, oxygen-doped boron nitride for enhanced and durable photochemical carbon dioxide reduction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Jul:665:443-451. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.03.139. Epub 2024 Mar 24.

Authors

Zhangfeng Shen¹, Yang Yang², Yuji Li¹, Xiaohua Cheng³, Huayang Zhang⁴, Xuhui Zou¹, Ming Qiu¹, Hong Huang¹, Hu Pan¹, Qineng Xia¹, Zhigang Ge¹, Yongyong Cao¹, Jing Gao⁵, Yangang Wang⁶

Affiliations

¹ College of Biological, Chemical Science and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China.
² College of Biological, Chemical Science and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China; College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
³ Hangzhou Perfect Purity Installation Company Limited, Hangzhou 311404, China. Electronic address: chengxiaohua81@163.com.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia.
⁵ College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
⁶ College of Biological, Chemical Science and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China. Electronic address: ygwang8136@mail.zjxu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38537590
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.03.139

Abstract

Despite great efforts that have been made, photocatalytic carbon dioxide (CO₂) reduction still faces enormous challenges due to the sluggish kinetics or disadvantageous thermodynamics. Herein, cadmium sulfide quantum dots (CdS QDs) were loaded onto carbon, oxygen-doped boron nitride (BN) and encapsulated by titanium carbide (Ti₃C₂, MXene) layers to construct a ternary composite. The uniform distribution of CdS QDs and the tight interfacial interaction among the three components could be achieved by adjusting the loading amounts of CdS QDs and MXene. The ternary 100MX/CQ/BN sample gave a productive rate of 2.45 and 0.44 μmol g^-1 h^-1 for carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH₄), respectively. This CO yield is 1.93 and 6.13 times higher than that of CdS QDs/BN and BN counterparts. The photocatalytic durability of the ternary composite is significantly improved compared with CdS QDs/BN because MXene can protect CdS from photocorrosion. The characterization results demonstrate that the excellent CO₂ adsorption and activation capabilities of BN, the visible light absorption of CdS QDs, the good conductivity of MXene and the well-matched energy band alignment jointly promote the photocatalytic performance of the ternary catalyst.

Keywords: Boron nitride; CO(2) adsorption; Cadmium sulfide; MXenes; Photocatalytic conversion.