In-situ grown of g-C3N4/Ti3C2/TiO2 nanotube arrays on Ti meshes for efficient degradation of organic pollutants under visible light irradiation

In this work, we successfully prepared a ternary photocatalyst g-C3N4/Ti3C2/TiO2 nanotube arrays (TNTAs) on Ti meshes by anodization, chemical vapor deposition method and in-situ grown. Several characterization analyses, such as field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to study the morphologies and optical properties of as-prepared photocatalysts. These characterizations indicated that the mixture of g-C3N4 and Ti3C2 were evenly distributed on the surface of TiO2 nanotube arrays. The photochemical analysis demonstrated that facilitated separation of carrier transfer in the g-C3N4/Ti3C2/TNTAs heterojunction was achieved. The optimum ratio of the gC(3)N(4)/Ti3C2/TNTAs yielded 3 folds higher photocurrent density than TNTAs. As a result, the degradation rate constant of rhodamine B and tetracycline hydrochloride of g-C3N4/Ti3C2/TNTAs were 0.0370 min(-1) and 0.0091 min(-1), which were about 3 folds and 2 folds higher than g-C3N4/TNTAs, respectively. The g-C3N4/Ti3C2/TNTAs shows admirable stability and facile recycle after 5 cycles. Furthermore, the degradation intermediates of tetracycline hydrochloride were identified by HPLC-MS, and the photocatalytic mechanism was proposed. These findings highlight an effective strategy to construct a reusable ternary photocatalysts for significantly boosting photo-degradation activities.