The Potential of MXene Materials as a Component in the Catalyst Layer for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of MXene materials as a component in catalyst layers for the oxygen evolution reaction, highlighting recent developments, challenges, and future prospects in hybrid TMO-MXene catalysts.

Contribution

It reviews recent literature on hybrid TMO-MXene catalysts for OER and discusses their advantages, limitations, and future research directions.

Findings

MXenes have high conductivity and large electrochemical surface area.

Hybrid TMO-MXene catalysts show promise for OER applications.

Current challenges include material stability and scalability.

Abstract

MXenes are a class of 2D/layered materials which are highly conductive, hydrophilic, have a large electrochemical surface area and are easily processible into electrodes for energy applications. Since the discovery of MXenes over ten years ago, these materials have been mainly used in the preparation of electrodes for batteries and supercapacitors. However, due to their aforementioned properties, MXenes could potentially be utilised as a component in the catalyst layer for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER). This opinion piece will discuss some of the recent literature in the area of hybrid catalysts consisting of various Transition Metal Oxides (TMOs) and MXenes for the OER. We will also discuss current drawbacks and future outlook in this new area of research.