A fast and mild method to prepare d-Ti3C2Tx/ZnO composites at room temperature with excellent catalytic performance

A fast and mild solution-phase method was developed to synthesize d-Ti3C2Tx/ZnO composites, which utilized the reaction between Zn2+ and excess OH- to rapidly generate ZnO nanoparticles on the delaminated Ti3C2Tx surface, based on electrostatic interactions and hydrolysis processes. The whole process does not need heating and could be carried out at room temperature, effectively avoiding the disadvantages of oxidation of d-Ti3C2Tx when being prepared under harsh conditions. The structure and morphology of d-Ti3C2Tx/ZnO composites were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS). The results showed that the structure of d-Ti3C2Tx was not affected, and ZnO nanoparticles with a size of 50 nm were uniformly dispersed on the d-Ti3C2Tx surface. In addition, the performance of d-Ti3C2Tx/ZnO composites on catalyzing the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP) was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). Upon the addition of 2 wt% d-Ti3C2Tx/ZnO composites, the pyrolysis peak temperature of AP was remarkably reduced by 133.5 degrees C, which was much superior to that of pure d-Ti3C2Tx and ZnO. This method has the potential to be extended to the preparation of other metal oxide and MXene composites with large scale batch.