Abstract:
The slow kinetics of Hydrogen oxide reaction (HOR) in alkaline medium greatly restricts the development of hydrogen oxygen fuel cells. Therefore, the development of high-performance alkaline HOR catalysts has become the main task nowadays. RuO
2/TiO
2-Ti
3C
2T
x catalyst was synthesized in one step by hydrothermal method using two-dimensional Ti
3C
2T
x MXene as catalyst carrier. The surface morphology and electronic structure of the catalyst were first characterized in detail by TEM, XRD and XPS. Then, it was found by electrochemical test that RuO
2/TiO
2-Ti
3C
2T
x showed excellent HOR activity in 0.1 mol/L KOH electrolyte: At 50mV overpotential (
vs. RHE), RuO
2/TiO
2-Ti
3C
2T
x exhibits a high geometric exchange current density (
j0) of 1.58 mA·cm
−2 and geometric dynamic current density (
jk) of 17.06 mA·cm
−2, which is 4.77 times that of Pt/C catalyst. In addition, in the hydrothermal reaction process, part of Ti
3C
2T
x MXene catalyzes the surface oxidation of the carrier to form TiO
2, so that RuO
2/TiO
2-Ti
3C
2T
x can run continuously for
5000 s under the condition of 0.1%(
1000 ppm) CO, and still show stable electrocatalytic HOR performance. The catalytic carrier Ti
3C
2T
x MXene regulates the electronic structure of the active metal Ru, which further reduces the Hydrogen binding energy (HBE) at the active site. RuO
2/TiO
2-Ti
3C
2T
x showed better HOR properties than commercial Pt/C and Ru/C catalysts with enhanced Hydroxyl binding energy (OHBE). This study provides a new strategy for the design and development of highly active and stable alkaline HOR electrocatalysts.