Facile Fabrication of TiO2 Quantum Dots-Anchored g-C3N4 Nanosheets as 0D/2D Heterojunction Nanocomposite for Accelerating Solar-Driven Photocatalysis

Abstract

TiO2 semiconductors exhibit a low catalytic activity level under visible light because of their large band gap and fast recombination of electron-hole pairs. This paper reports the simple fabrication of a 0D/2D heterojunction photocatalyst by anchoring TiO2 quantum dots (QDs) on graphite-like C3N4 (g-C3N4) nanosheets (NSs); the photocatalyst is denoted as TiO2 QDs@g-C3N4. The nanocomposite was characterized via analytical instruments, such as powder X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, t orange (MO) under solar light were compared. The TiO2 QDs@g-C3N4 photocatalyst exhibited 95.57% MO degradation efficiency and similar to 3.3-fold and 5.7-fold higher activity level than those of TiO2 QDs and g-C3N4 NSs, respectively. Zero-dimensional/two-dimensional heterojunction formation with a staggered electronic structure leads to the efficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers via a Z-scheme pathway, which significantly accelerates photocatalysis under solar light. This study provides a facile synthetic method for the rational design of 0D/2D heterojunction nanocomposites with enhanced solar-driven catalytic activity.