PVP Functionalized Marigold-like MoS2 as a New Electrocatalyst for Highly Efficient Electrochemical Hydrogen Evolution

• Published in: Electrocatalysis 2020, Vol.11 (4), p.383-392
• Main Authors: Wang, Weili, Qiu, Bingqing, Li, Chenxi, Shen, Xiaqiang, Tang, Jing, Li, Yi, Liu, Guokun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Basal plane; Catalysis; Catalysts; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Electrochemistry; Electronic structure; Energy Systems; Hydrogen evolution reactions; Hydrogen storage; Hydrogen-based energy; Molybdenum disulfide; Original Research Articles; Physical Chemistry; Two dimensional materials
• ISSN: 1868-2529; 1868-5994
• DOI: 10.1007/s12678-020-00594-y

Molybdenum disulfide is regarded as the inheritor of Pt-based catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), arising from low-cost and abundant resource. However, the electrocatalytic efficiency of MoS 2 is much lower than that of Pt-based catalysts, as a result of lacking edge active sites, poor activity of basal plane, and deficient conductivity. Herein, by introducing nanoflower-like MoS 2 with PVP coating (PVP@MoS 2 ) as catalyst, high performance for HER is observed. The higher efficiency of PVP@MoS 2 is mainly due to the four points: (1) the formation of more spatial manipulated nanoflower structure by thin MoS 2 slices exposing large amount of edge active sites; (2) improving basal plane atom utilization with the enlarged (002) plane from 6.2 to 6.8 Å; (3) the intrinsic conductivity of MoS 2 increases, because the electron can transfer from C=O and C–N to MoS 2 ; (4) the decreased hydrogen atom absorption energy from 0.815 to 0.684 eV extracts from DFT calculation. Therefore, the synergetic effect of the micro/nano-structure and electronic structure offers a simple, effective, and possible way for many other 2D materials to enhance their electrocatalytic HER activity. Graphical Abstract