Heterostructure composites of TiO2 and CdZnS nanoparticles decorated on Ti3C2Tx nanosheets and their enhanced photocatalytic performance by microwave hydrothermal method

Single transition metal oxide photocatalysts face the problems about low utilization of sunlight and easy recombination of photogenerated carries. In this paper, TiO2 @Ti3C2/CdxZn1−xS (MT-xC) composite photocatalysts were prepared in one step with the aid of microwave hydrothermal method by synergistic in situ compounding and construction of semiconductor heterojunction. The results showed that when the microwave hydrothermal temperature was 140 °C, the reaction time was 0.5 h and the CdZnS loading was 30 wt%, MT-3 C photocatalyst demonstrated good photocatalytic performance, with a degradation efficiency of 93.66% for 20 mg/L rhodamine B (RhB) within 90 min. The main reason for this significant improvement is that TiO2 and CdxZn1−xS have matched band structure, the spatial separation of photogenerated carries in photocatalytic reactions can be accelerated by constructing a Z-type heterojunction. Moreover, the efficient and homogeneous heating of microwaves can provide a large amount of energy for the oxidation of Ti3C2 within a short time. The synergistic effect of semiconductor heterojunction composed of Ti3C2, TiO2 and CdxZn1−xS and microwave can further improve the catalytic activity of the composite photocatalyst.