Research progress in application of novel two-dimensional MXenes material for fuel cells

Abstract

MXenes are a new type of two-dimensional layered transition metal carbides and nitrides prepared by selective etching of MAX phase materials. Due to their excellent physical, electronic and chemical properties, MXenes have been widely used in electromagnetic shielding, biomedicine, energy storage, sensors, water purification and other fields. At the same time, MXenes and their composites can effectively improve the catalytic efficiency of noble metal catalysts or directly serve as a class of non-precious metal catalysts due to their large specific surface area, excellent electrical conductivity and stability, and are regarded as a promising class of fuel cells electrocatalysts or supports. The structure, properties and preparation methods of MXenes were introduced in this paper, and the latest application research results of MXenes and their composites in the fields of oxygen reduction, formic acid oxidation, methanol oxidation and ethanol oxidation reactions were overviewed, and the main problems existing in MXenes materials were pointed out (for example, it is difficult to preparing uniformly dispersed multi-layer MXenes flakes or few or even single-layer MXenes flakes, which are easy to re-stack due to higher surface energy, etc.), preparing more new MXenes and composite them with various materials were put forward, in order to promote the application of MXenes and their composites in the field of fuel cells.

Keywords

• mxenes
• two-dimension material
• fuel cell
• oxygen reduction reaction
• formic acid oxid-ation
• methanol oxidation
• ethanol oxidation