CoSe2/FeSe2-decorated Ti3C2Tx MXene nanohybrids on carbon cloth as efficient catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction
Subramanian Premlatha, Hanli Qin, Zhenyuan Ji, Hu Zhou, Hongbo Zhou, Xiaoping Shen
Abstract
The development of economical and high efficiency electrocatalyts for oxygen evolution reaction remains a daunting challenge to meet the growing energy demands. The slow kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the high cost of commercial electrocatalysts hinder the electrochemical production of hydrogen. Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene, an emerging class of two-dimensional material, exhibits excellent electronic properties and is highly desirable for electrocatalysis. In this work, nanohybrid catalysts comprising Ti 3 C 2 T x and CoSe 2 /FeSe 2 nanoparticles are successfully fabricated on carbon cloth via a simple solvothermal strategy and demonstrated as OER electrocatalysts under alkaline conditions. The resultant Ti 3 C 2 T x /CoSe 2 /FeSe 2 nanohybrid exhibits a very low overpotential of 200 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 and a small Tafel slope of 37 mV dec −1 . The rapid charge transfer is evidenced from the low R ct (1.1 Ω). In addition, the Ti 3 C 2 T x /CoSe 2 /FeSe 2 catalyst exhibits good durability, with 96 % current density retention over 55-h OER testing. The synergistic effect between the CoSe 2 /FeSe 2 nanoparticles and the highly conductive Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene provides rich catalytic active sites and rapid reaction kinetics for OER. This work provides a superior alternative for precious metal catalysts in OER, and opens the door to the design of low cost and high-performance OER electrocatalysts based on Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene and transition metal chalcogenides.