In situ turning defects of exfoliated Ti3C2 MXene into Fenton-like catalytic active sites

Yue Jiang, Didar Baimanov, Shan Jin, Japhet Cheuk Fung Law, Pengcheng Zhao, Juanjuan Tang, Jian Peng, Liming Wang, Kelvin Sze Yin Leung, Wenchao Sheng, Sijie Lin*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Controllable in situ formation of nanoclusters with discrete active sites is highly desirable in heterogeneous catalysis. Herein, a titanium oxide-based Fenton-like catalyst is constructed using exfoliated Ti3C2 MXene as a template. Theoretical calculations reveal that a redox reaction between the surface Ti-deficit vacancies of the exfoliated Ti3C2 MXene and H2O2 molecules facilitates the in situ conversion of surface defects into titanium oxide nanoclusters anchoring on amorphous carbon (TiOx@C). The presence of mixed-valence Tiδ+ (δ = 0, 2, 3, and 4) within TiOx@C is confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) characterizations. The abundant surface defects within TiOx@C effectively promote the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) leading to superior and stable Fenton-like catalytic degradation of atrazine, a typical agricultural herbicide. Such an in situ construction of Fenton-like catalysts through defect engineering also applies to other MXene family materials, such as V2C and Nb2C.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2210211120
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume120
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Jan 2023

Scopus Subject Areas

  • General

User-Defined Keywords

  • heterogeneous catalysis
  • in situ
  • multivalence
  • MXene
  • template synthesis

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