Insight into the catalytic activity of MXenes for hydrogen evolution reaction.

MXenes have exhibited great potential as cost-effective electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, insight into the origin of activity is still missing. Herein, on the basis of a systematical investigation of the HER performance of 20 MXenes (MNO and MCO, M = Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Zr, Nb, Mo, Hf, Ta and W), a Fermi-abundance model is proposed to understand variation of the activity in different MXenes. It is found that the occupied p electronic states of surface O atoms play a decisive role in the HER activity of MXenes. More importantly, TiNO and NbNO are found to be promising HER electrocatalysts with the free energy for hydrogen adsorption close to zero. This work not only provides possible catalysts for HER, the developed Fermi-abundance model but also is applicable to other two-dimensional materials and may serve as a simple descriptor of the intrinsic HER activity.