Issue 15, 2020

Confined growth of pyridinic N–Mo2C sites on MXenes for hydrogen evolution

Abstract

Developing low-cost and high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts is a key research area for scalable hydrogen production from water electrolysis. Here, a hybrid of nitrogen-doped carbon encapsulated Mo2C nanodots on Ti3C2Tx MXene (Mo2C/Ti3C2Tx@NC) is developed through in situ polymerization of dopamine and a Mo precursor on the Ti3C2Tx MXene surface. During the annealing treatment, the polydopamine plays multiple roles in forming N-doped carbon, confining MoO42− ions into ultrasmall Mo2C nanodots, and stabilizing the MXene flakes against spontaneous oxidation. The as-synthesized hybrid exhibits excellent HER activity in acidic electrolyte with an overpotential of 53 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and excellent stability over 30 hours. The combination of experiments and simulations demonstrates that pyridinic N-doped carbon coated Mo2C nanodots serve as the active sites and Ti3C2Tx MXene facilitates the charge transfer, synergistically contributing to the superior HER performance.

Graphical abstract: Confined growth of pyridinic N–Mo2C sites on MXenes for hydrogen evolution

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
12 feb 2020
Accepted
24 mrt 2020
First published
02 apr 2020

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020,8, 7109-7116

Confined growth of pyridinic N–Mo2C sites on MXenes for hydrogen evolution

H. Wang, Y. Lin, S. Liu, J. Li, L. Bu, J. Chen, X. Xiao, J. Choi, L. Gao and J. Lee, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020, 8, 7109 DOI: 10.1039/D0TA01697G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements