Combustion synthesis of TiO2/C composites for enhanced photocatalytic H2O2 production and solar steam evaporation efficiency

•Successfully constructed TiO2/C composites by combustion method.•Co-existence of carbon quantum dots and amorphous carbon on the surface of the TiO2.•Enhanced visible light absorption and electron-hole pair separation.•Enhanced photocatalytic H2O2 production performance.•High-efficiency of the solar evaporation. In this work, a simple combustion method was proposed for the controllable synthesis of TiO2/C composites, which can achieve both the efficient solar water evaporation at the interface and photocatalytic H2O2 production. Structural and morphological characteristic indicated the co-existence of carbon quantum dots and amorphous carbon, which were well distributed on the surface of the TiO2. TiO2/C composites displayed the enhanced visible light absorption and the rapid separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. TiO2/C-10 exhibited an excellent photocatalytic H2O2 production activity of 3068.46 μmol/g/h under the simulated solar irradiation. Besides, its water evaporation rate reached up to 5.81 kg·m−2·h−1 under the simulated solar irradiation.