Design of S-scheme Mxene/S-g-C3N4/NiAl-LDH heterojunctions with spatial charge separation for achieving efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production

Abstract

The major challenges of this age involve growing consumption of energy and sustainability concerns. The depletion of petroleum and coal has compelled us to seek novel sources of energy that are renewable and solutions to environmental issues. By absorbing the radiation from the Sun and turning it into various kinds of power, including chemical energy, solar energy has a significant potential to be used as a source of energy and for ecological restoration purposes.Because of rising contamination of the environment, it is imperative that environmentally sound technology be developed that tackles the core problem. The greatest method to overcome environmental problems is through nanotechnology and photocatalysis.The development and testing of an entirely new 2D-2D S-Scheme Mxene/S-gC3N4/NiAl-LDH heterojunction photocatalyst for exceptional photocatalytic reaction driven by the irradiatin of visible light has been described in this study. XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM,EDS,Elemental mapping and the use of HRTEM was done for evaluation of the crystalline structure, morphology, and content of the 2D-2D heterojunction, which was synthesized using a simple hydrothermal approach. UV-Visible absorption spectroscopy and PL were used for verifying the material's optical characteristics. The 2D-2D S-Scheme Mxene/S gC3N4/NiAl-LDH heterojunction was used to check the amount of hydrogen evolved as result of photocatalytic water splitting and exceptional results were obtained demonstrating the excellent Hydrogen evolution of about 61.63 mmolg-1 h-1 .The catalyst displayed better performance as compared to the pristine (NiAl-LDH,S-gC3N4,Mxene) catalyst’s hydrogen production alone. This thesis thus gives a practical vision for sustainable hydrogen generation to promote the construction of potential hydrogen economies, particularly from the viewpoint of emerging economies like Pakistan that are seriously impacted by the effects of climate change.