Cheap, stable, and efficient catalysts
were a prerequisite for
the large-scale application of hydrogen energy. Herein, carbon nanotubes
(CNTs) were utilized as the carbon source and compounded with Ti3C2 MXene sheets under liquid-phase conditions to
fabricate the CNTs@Ti3C2 skeleton. Then, ruthenium
(Ru) chloride and cobalt (Co) nitrate were introduced as the metal
source and carbonized the mixture at high temperature to obtain carbon/MXene
composites loaded with cobalt-ruthenium metal nanoparticles (CoRu/CNTs@Ti3C2). Thanks to the uniform dispersion of CoRu nanoparticles
on the surface of the CNTs@Ti3C2 skeleton, more
catalytic active sites were exposed and that endowed the composite
with excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance. Therefore,
the obtained CoRu/CNTs@Ti3C2 composite exhibited
a relatively low HER overpotential (η10) of 74 mV
and a Tafel slope of 80 mV·dec–1 under acidic
electrolyte (0.5 M H2SO4) with stable electrochemical
activity (only increased by ∼10 mV after 3000 cycles testing).
This work provided a feasible opportunity for the large-scale and
low-cost production of stable and efficient catalysts for practical
applications.
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