Interface engineering of hierarchical photocatalyst for enhancing photoinduced charge transfers

Constructing favorable nanostructure to make full use of excited charges is considered as a feasible approach to boost the photocatalytic performance of semiconductor catalysts. High dispersed Pt-like cocatalysts would provide generous reaction sites as well as accelerating the charge transfer. Herein, an in-situ method is developed to cover molybdenum carbide/carbon layer on the surface of flower-like TiO 2 and eventually form a hierarchical TiO 2 @Mo 2 C/C photocatalyst. The resulting heterostructure exhibits photocatalytic activity of 10.21 mmol h −1  g −1 which is 21 times higher than normal TiO 2 and achieved high stability for more than 16 h. By further analyses such as photoluminescence (PL) and surface photovoltage (SPV), the enhancement of photocatalytic activity could be explained by fast charge separation and utilization. Theoretical calculation shows the superiority of flower-like TiO 2 for coexposed active facets. The unique method of in-situ construction could be helpful to obtain functional integrating catalysts for proton-coupled electron transfers (PCETs) photocatalytic reactions.