Rhenium anchored Ti3C2T x (MXene) nanosheets for electrocatalytic hydrogen production

Selengesuren Suragtkhuu; Suvdanchimeg Sunderiya; Solongo Purevdorj; Munkhjargal Bat-Erdene; Batjargal Sainbileg; Michitoshi Hayashi; Abdulaziz S R Bati; Joseph G Shapter; Sarangerel Davaasambuu; Munkhbayar Batmunkh

doi:10.1039/d2na00782g

Rhenium anchored Ti₃C₂T _x (MXene) nanosheets for electrocatalytic hydrogen production

Nanoscale Adv. 2022 Dec 5;5(2):349-355. doi: 10.1039/d2na00782g. eCollection 2023 Jan 18.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Division of Natural Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, National University of Mongolia Ulaanbaatar 14200 Mongolia sarangerel@num.edu.mn.
² Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University Nathan Queensland 4111 Australia m.batmunkh@griffith.edu.au.
³ Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland 4072 Australia.
⁴ Center for Condensed Matter Sciences, Center of Atomic Initiative for New Materials, National Taiwan University Taipei 106 Taiwan.
⁵ Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland 4072 Australia.

Abstract

Atomically thin Ti₃C₂T _x (MXene) nanosheets with rich termination groups, acting as active sites for effective functionalization, are used as an efficient solid support to host rhenium (Re) nanoparticles for the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The newly designed electrocatalyst - Re nanoparticles anchored on Ti₃C₂T _x MXene nanosheets (Re@Ti₃C₂T _x ) - exhibited promising catalytic activity with a low overpotential of 298 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mV cm^-2, while displaying excellent stability. In comparison, the pristine Ti₃C₂T _x MXene requires higher overpotential of 584 mV to obtain the same current density. After being stored under ambient conditions for 30 days, Re@Ti₃C₂T _x retained 100% of its initial catalytic activity for the HER, while the pristine Ti₃C₂T _x retained only 74.8% of its initial value. According to our theoretical calculations using density functional theory, dual Re anchored MXene (Re@Ti₃C₂T _x ) exhibits a near-zero value of Gibbs free energy (ΔG _H* = -0.06 eV) for the HER, demonstrating that the presence of Re significantly enhances the electrocatalytic activity of MXene nanosheets. This work introduces a facile strategy to develop an effective electrocatalyst for electrocatalytic hydrogen production.