Modulation of Surface Ti–O Species in 2D-Ti3C2TX MXene for Developing a Highly Efficient Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution and Methanol Oxidation Reactions

Developing cost-effective and earth-abundant noble-metal-free electrocatalysts is imperative for the imminent electrochemical society. Two-dimensional Ti3C2TX (MXene) exhibits tunable properties with high electrical conductivity and a large specific surface area, which improve its electrochemical performance. Herein, the low-temperature annealing method is used to enrich MXene with a maximum number of Ti–O terminals without formation of titanium dioxide (TiO2) under neutral pH conditions. MXene annealed at 200 °C is found to have a large number of Ti–O termination groups, resulting in a large electrochemically active surface area and increased active sites (−O termination groups) and hence excellent electrocatalytic performance compared to other samples as well as previous reported work. The optimized sample is found to show the lowest overpotential value of 0.07 V at 10 mA cm–2 and a Tafel slope of 0.15 V dec–1 toward the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), whereas for the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR), the current density is 18.08 mA cm–2, and the onset potential is −0.51 V. In addition, it also shows long-term stability and durability toward HER as well as MOR.