Oxygen-Functionalized Ultrathin Ti3C2Tx MXene for Enhanced Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Graphical S‘O’ much win with MXene : A facile method is reported to produce ultrathin Ti 3 C 2 MXene functionalized with oxygen as an electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction. The terminal O on the basal plane increases the number of active sites for electrocatalysis. This combined with the high surface area and conductivity enables the O-functionalized MXene to show enhanced electrocatalytic performance for hydrogen evolution. Two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal carbides (MXenes) are widely adopted as potential electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) owing to their metallic conductivity, rich tunable surface chemistry, and atomic thickness with highly exposed active sites. Previously published theoretical results indicate that MXenes functionalized entirely with oxygen have lower Δ G H* for HER. However, MXenes contain many terminal F groups on the basal plane, which is detrimental to the HER. Herein, the development of an ultrathin Ti 3 C 2 MXene nanosheet fully functionalized with oxygen is reported for the HER. The obtained oxygen-functionalized Ti 3 C 2 (Ti 3 C 2 O x ) exhibits a much higher HER activity (190 mV at 10 mA cm −2 ) than that of Ti 3 C 2 T x (T=F, OH, and O). The improved HER performance is attributed to the highly active O sites on the basal plane of Ti 3 C 2 T x MXenes. This study paves way for electrocatalytic applications of MXene materials by tuning their surface functional groups.