Fabrication and Characterization of Mo2C Hybrids for Electrochemical Water Splitting for Hydrogen Evaluation

Abstract

For electrochemical water splitting, the fabrication and designing of an active, durable, and stable bifunctional catalyst is the most challenging issue. In this work we reported a bifunctional heterostructure hybrid of ZIF-67 coated by Mo2C with optimized ratio (1:2). This bifunctional electrocatalyst have shown an outstanding activity for water splitting. MCZ -2 synthesized by annealing at high temperature which resulted in high activity both for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) processes. The hybrid with ratio of (1:2) have shown superior catalytic activity. The prepared catalyst has shown a low overpotential of 169 mV and 208 mV at the current density of 10 mA/cm2 and 20 mA/cm2 for HER. For OER, it possesses a very low overpotential of 340 mV and 370 mV at the current density of 20 mA/cm2 and 50 mA/cm2. Besides, this the MCZ - 2 have shown a long-term stability 24 h at the current density of 100 μA/cm2. The boosted HER and OER activity of the hybrid is attributed with synergetic effect between ZIF 67 and Mo2C and modulation of active sites due to the presence of N in the hybrid.