Construction of SrTiO3/Ti3C2/TiO2 Z-scheme derived from multilayer Ti3C2 MXene for efficient photocatalytic overall water splitting

Constructing a Z-scheme system is one of the promising approaches for facilitating the separation and transfer of photogenerated carriers and obtaining the admirable photocatalytic activity. However, due to the similar material system and band alignment in type-II and Z-scheme, obtaining a favorable Z-scheme is a significant challenge. In this work, an in-situ construction of SrTiO3/Ti3C2/TiO2 Z-scheme is presented using a two-step hydrothermal method with multilayer Ti3C2 as the Ti source. This in-situ growth strategy, which utilizes the intrinsic Ti source of Ti3C2, enables the construction of the SrTiO3/Ti3C2/TiO2 Z-scheme through the enhanced interfacial ohmic contacts between SrTiO3, highly conductive Ti3C2 and TiO2 at the atomic level. The obtained SrTiO3/Ti3C2/TiO2 (SMT-3) sample shows a remarkable enhancement in photocatalytic overall water splitting performance compared with SMT-1 and SMT-10 samples. This work provides an alternative strategy for constructing a highly efficient Z-scheme for photocatalytic overall water splitting.