MoS<sub>2</sub>-Carbon Inter-overlapped Structures as Effective Electrocatalysts for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

oleh: Po-Chia Huang, Chia-Ling Wu, Sanjaya Brahma, Muhammad Omar Shaikh, Jow-Lay Huang, Jey-Jau Lee, Sheng-Chang Wang

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2020-07-01

Deskripsi

The ability to generate hydrogen in an economic and sustainable manner is critical to the realization of a future hydrogen economy. Electrocatalytic water splitting into molecular hydrogen using the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) provides a viable option for hydrogen generation. Consequently, advanced non-precious metal based electrocatalysts that promote HER and reduce the overpotential are being widely researched. Here, we report on the development of MoS<sub>2</sub>-carbon inter-overlapped structures and their applicability for enhancing electrocatalytic HER. These structures were synthesized by a facile hot-injection method using ammonium tetrathiomolybdate ((NH<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub>MoS<sub>4</sub>) as the precursor and oleylamine (OLA) as the solvent, followed by a carbonization step. During the synthesis protocol, OLA not only plays the role of a reacting solvent but also acts as an intercalating agent which enlarges the interlayer spacing of MoS<sub>2</sub> to form OLA-protected monolayer MoS<sub>2</sub>. After the carbonization step, the crystallinity improves substantially, and OLA can be completely converted into carbon, thus forming an inter-overlapped superstructure, as characterized in detail using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). A Tafel slope of 118 mV/dec is obtained for the monolayer MoS<sub>2</sub>-carbon superstructure, which shows a significant improvement, as compared to the 202 mV/dec observed for OLA-protected monolayer MoS<sub>2</sub>. The enhanced HER performance is attributed to the improved conductivity along the c-axis due to the presence of carbon and the abundance of active sites due to the interlayer expansion of the monolayer MoS<sub>2</sub> by OLA.