Surface Modifications of 2D-Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> by Nonmetal Doping for Obtaining High Hydrogen Evolution Reaction Activity: A Computational Approach

oleh: Fangtao Li, Xiaoxu Wang, Rongming Wang

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2021-01-01

Deskripsi

As a typical two-dimensional (2D) MXene, Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> has been considered as a potential material for high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst, due to its anticorrosion and hydrophilic surface. However, it is still a challenge to improve the Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> surficial HER catalytic activity. In this work, we investigated the HER activity of Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> after the surface was doped with S, Se, and Te by the first principles method. The results indicated that the HER activity of Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> is improved after being doped with S, Se, Te because the Gibbs free energy of hydrogen adsorption (ΔG<sub>H</sub>) is increased from −2.19 eV to 0.08 eV. Furthermore, we also found that the ΔG<sub>H</sub> of Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> increased from 0.182 eV to 0.08 eV with the doping concentration varied from 5.5% to 16.7%. The HER catalytic activity improvement of Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> is attributed to the local crystal structure distortion in catalytic active sites and Fermi level shift leads to the p-d orbital hybridization. Our results pave a new avenue for preparing a low-cost and high performance HER catalyst.