Ternary amorphous/crystalline NiMoB/Ni@Ti3C2 heterostructures with electronic modulation for high-performance alkaline hydrogen evolution catalysis

Abstract

Constructing multicomponent heterostructures with coexisting amorphous and crystalline phases offers a promising strategy to finely optimize electronic structures and thereby promote the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) kinetics in alkaline media. Here, we design a ternary heterostructure consisting of amorphous/crystalline NiMoB/Ni anchored on Ti3C2 MXene (denoted as a-NiMoB/c-Ni@Ti3C2), which fully leverages synergistic electronic modulation at the heterointerfaces. This architecture significantly enhances active site exposure, improves charge transfer efficiency, and stabilizes the catalyst framework. As a result, the a-NiMoB/c-Ni@Ti3C2 catalyst achieves an impressive HER performance, requiring an overpotential of only 87.8 mV to deliver 10 mA cm−2 with a low Tafel slope of 40.3 mV dec−1 and excellent operational durability in 1 M KOH. Density functional theory calculations combined with photoelectron spectroscopy analysis reveal that interfacial electronic interactions between NiMoB/Ni and Ti3C2 critically drive the improved HER kinetics. This work offers a perspective for the rational design of high-efficiency ternary heterostructure electrocatalysts for alkaline hydrogen production.