Advancements in MXene-based frameworks towards photocatalytic hydrogen production, carbon dioxide reduction and pollutant degradation: Current challenges and future prospects

Abstract

The 2D-MXene frameworks (2D-MXene) comprising transition metal carbide, nitride, is regarded next generation advanced material, that have procured significant courtesy owing to their incredible characteristic of highly ordered framework, controllable structure, large surface area, along with ample surface functional groups. As, practical application of MXene in most research fields is still at up grading phase owing to their relatively rare surface-active site, low stability and structural configuration for photocatalytic reaction.The substantial research has been devoted to maximize their advantages and mitigate the shortcomings of 2D-MXene for photocatalysis. Thus, thanks to the progress of various kinds of MXene preparation strategies, now researcher could easily understand the weakness behind every step of MXene synthesis with accurate morphology and tunable characteristics for numerous applications. Besides, MXene with improved structure and up-to-date information regarding potential application in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (PHE), photocatalytic carbon reduction (PCR) and photocatalytic pollutant degradation (PPD) along with key drawbacks and potential solutions is not sufficiently summarized in literature yet. By keeping in view these facts, this review article investigated the background, structural information, brief timeline of its progress, and notabl milestone in its synthesis with tunable properties to get better understanding about their PHE, PCR and PPD properties. In which, the role of MXene as a photocatalyst, along with different types of MXene (0D, 1D, 2D, 3D) is discussed in detail. Finally, the current challenges and their future recommendation on developing high performance MXene to improve photocatalytic activity, is discussed in this review. Hence, our review will open a new understanding in a sustaianble way to facilitate the discovery and application of MXene based photocatalyst to improve photocatalyticapplication.