Hydrothermal synthesis and water splitting application of d-Ti3C2 MXene/V2O5 hybrid nanostructures as an efficient bifunctional catalyst

Fabrication of bi-functional noble metal-free catalysts with high efficacy and low cost are needed for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions. Herein, we provide a simple hydrothermal method to synthesize delaminated-Ti3C2/V2O5 (d-Ti3C2/V2O5) hybrid nanostructures. d-Ti3C2/V2O5 hybrid nanostructures are highly active in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with 90 mV at 10 mA cm−2. Superior oxygen evolution activity is observed for d-Ti3C2/V2O5 with 240 mV overpotential at 10 mA cm−2. Impressively, d-Ti3C2/V2O5 could efficiently drive water splitting into H2 and O2 at a voltage of 1.45 V at 10 mAcm−2 in a two-electrode configuration and a long-term stability was verified for 24 h with a negligible loss in the current density. This is owing to catalytic activity may be due to synergistic effect between d-Ti3C2 MXene and V2O5 nanostructures. The present study highlights different hybrid nanostructures of d-Ti3C2 MXene with metal oxides which can beneficially accelerates electron transfer during the water splitting process and are useful to improve electrocatalytic performance of various MXenes.