Production of Oxygen-Rich Mo-Based Mxene Flakes for Ni Nanoparticles Anchoring and Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution Activity

Abstract

Exploring highly efficient hybrid catalysts for enhancing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is greatly desired but challenging for electrocatalysis applications. Herein, a hybrid consisted of oxygen-rich Mo2TiC2Tx MXene coupled with Ni nanoparticles (NPs), denoted as Ni@oMX hybrid, was fabricated for electrocatalytic HER. Particularly, the pre-vacuum treatment improves the content of oxygen terminates on Mo2TiC2Tx, while reserves the primitive morphology of MXene nanoflakes. Eventually, the oMX effectively regulates the nucleation and growth behaviors of Ni NPs, inducing a small-sized as well as homogeneous coverage on the surface of oMX. Meanwhile, the increased oxygen groups also enhanced the interaction between oMX and Ni NPs via strong Ni-O bond. When evaluated as the HER catalyst in 1M KOH solution, the Ni@oMX catalyst delivers the lowest overpotential and a high durability over 75 hours.

Keywords: Nickle nanoparticles, MXene, hybrid, electrocatalysts, Hydrogen evolution reaction