Molybdenum disulfide with enlarged interlayer spacing decorated on reduced graphene oxide for efficient electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

• Published in: Journal of materials science Vol. 55; no. 15; pp. 6637 - 6647
• Main Authors: Lin, Qing, Dong, Xiaoli, Wang, Yu, Zheng, Nan, Zhao, Yilin, Xu, Wenwen, Ding, Tao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.05.2020; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: capacitance; catalysts; catalytic activity; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Classical Mechanics; Crystallography and Scattering Methods; Cysteine; Electric properties; Electrocatalysts; electrochemistry; Energy Materials; Force and energy; Graphene; graphene oxide; Graphite; Hydrogen; Hydrogen evolution reactions; hydrogen production; Interlayers; Materials Science; Molybdenum; Molybdenum compounds; Molybdenum disulfide; Morphology; nanosheets; Nanostructure; Performance enhancement; Polymer Sciences; Solid Mechanics; Substrates; sulfur; synergism; Synergistic effect; Synthesis; Transition metal compounds; Water splitting
• ISSN: 0022-2461; 1573-4803
• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-020-04478-w

Layered transition metal dichalcogenides especially MoS 2 is favorable to be the low-cost alternative to Pt-based electrocatalysts for water splitting. Defect-rich MoS 2 nanosheets exhibiting enlarged interlayer spacing of 9.2 Å were synthesized via a solvothermal method, in which trithiocyanuric acid (TTCA) was used as a sulfur source. In addition, we synthesized MoS 2 with L -cysteine for comparison. To improve the conductivity and quantity of active exposed sites of MoS 2 nanosheets, the rGO nanosheets were introduced to hybridize with MoS 2 . With the addition of rGO, the MoS 2 /rGO hybrids exhibit different morphologies and larger interlayer spacing of 9.5 Å. Furthermore, the enhanced performance for hydrogen evolution reaction is attributed to the synergistic effect between the MoS 2 nanosheets and rGO substrates. MoS 2 /rGO-2 possesses an onset overpotential of 118 mV, a small Tafel slope of 51 mV/dec, high double-layer capacitance ( C dl ) of 15.27 mF/cm 2 , and superior cycling stability over 1000 cycles in acidic conditions.