Nitrogen-Doped Ti₃C₂ MXene Quantum Dots/1D CdS Nanorod Heterostructure Photocatalyst of Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution

Solar-driven photocatalytic hydrogen production is considered an effective strategy to mitigate the current energy and environmental challenges. Herein, a function heterostructure photocatalyst of 1D CdS nanorod rationally supported nitrogen-doped Ti3C2 MXene quantum dots (N-MQDs) is successfully constructed via the self-assembly strategy. Impressively, N-MQDs/CdS exhibits superior photocatalytic hydrogen production performance with an efficiency rate of 17094 μmol g–1 h–1, which is 14.79 times higher than pure CdS. The strong oxidizing performance of N-MQDs/CdS also presents an efficient activity for the photodegradation of phenol. The significant enhancement in performance is mainly due to the synergistic effect of the tight interfacial contact and matched energy levels between the highly conductive Ti3C2 MXene quantum dots and 1D CdS nanorod, which greatly accelerates the separation and transfer of photogenerated carriers. Regulating the energy band structure of photocatalysts via multifunctional MXene materials could hopefully motivate further interest in the reasonable design of MXene-semiconductor photocatalytic materials in energy and environmental applications.