Photocatalytic CO₂ Reduction to Produce Cleaner Fuels Over Vanadium Aluminium Carbide (V₂AlC) Supported TiO₂ Composite

Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to produce cleaner fuels is a promising approach for climate action to achieve sustainable development goals. Herein, noble metal-free vanadium aluminium carbide (V2AlC) MAX as cocatalysts with TiO2 to construct 2D/0D V2AlC/TiO2 heterojunction for photocatalytic CO2 reduction with water to produce CO and CH4 has been investigated. Coupling V2AlC with TiO2 was beneficial in increasing visible light absorbance capacity and charge separation efficiency. Using 10 % V2AlC/TiO2 composite, the highest CO and CH4 production of 522 and 78.3 µmol g^-1 h^-1 were achieved, which were much higher than using pristine TiO2 samples. This significant enhancement in photocatalytic efficiency was due to good interface interaction with proficient charge carrier separation. The findings of this work would be beneficial for further investigation in the design and fabrication of noble metal-free composite materials for energy and environmental applications.