Ti3C2Tx nanosheets with uniformly anchored Ru nanoparticles for efficient acidic and basic hydrogen evolution reaction

摘要

Developing an efficient and stable electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) remains critically significance for renewable hydrogen production. Herein, a facile electrochemical reduction method was proposed to fabricate Ru nanoparticles (NPs) evenly anchored on Ti3C2Tx nanosheets (Ti3C2Tx-NS) electrocatalyst (Ru@Ti3C2Tx-NS). Interestingly, owing to the interaction between Ru NPs and Ti3C2Tx-NS, the resultant Ru@Ti3C2Tx-NS electrocatalyst performed a Pt-like electrocatalytic property for HER under the acidic solution with an ultra-low overpotential of 46.75 mV to reach-10 mA/cm2, a small Tafel slope of 30.6 mV/dec, and long-term stability. Simultaneously, the Ru@Ti3C2-Tx-NS also displayed splendid HER electrocatalytic performance in the basic condition. Furthermore, Ru@Ti3C2Tx-NS showed a lower value of Gibbs free energy for HER (-0.21 eV) than either pure Ru or Ti3C2Tx-NS from the theoretical calculation results. It is expected that such a promising approach would be extended to design and fabricate other noble metal NPs anchored MXene nanosheets for HER application.(c) 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.