Exposing high-activity (111) facet CoO octahedral loading MXene quantum dots for efficient and stable photocatalytic H2 evolution

Abstract

Photocatalytic splitting of water for hydrogen generation is a green and renewable solution for converting solar energy to chemical energy; thus, the development of high-performance and stable photocatalytic materials has emerged as a research hotspot recently. Herein, a heterostructure composite photocatalyst of octahedral CoO uniformly modified with novel nitrogen-doped MXene quantum dots (N-MQDs) is successfully designed using a typical solvothermal approach. The optimum photocatalytic hydrogen evolution efficiency of the prepared N-MQDs@CoO heterojunction composite is 82.54 μmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ with visible light, which is 16.57 times higher compared to the pure CoO. A series of photoelectrochemical tests were further performed to elucidate the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution mechanism. The remarkable improvement of activity is primarily attributed to the synergistic interaction between the closely spaced interface contacts and energy level matching among high conductivity Ti₃C₂ MXene quantum dots with CoO octahedra, dramatically hastening the segregation and transfer of photo-generated carriers. This study provides new ideas for the construction of MXene quantum dot-based co-photocatalysts with highly efficient photocatalytic performance and stability toward solar energy conversion applications.