Tuning the Intrinsic Activity and Electrochemical Surface Area of MoS2 via Tiny Zn Doping: Toward an Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) Catalyst

Molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) is considered as an alternative material for commercial platinum catalysts for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Improving the apparent HER activity of MoS2 to a level comparable to that of Pt is an essential premise for the commercial use of MoS2. In this...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemistry : a European journal 2021-11, Vol.27 (64), p.15992-15999
Main Authors: Xu, Jun, Zhao, Zelin, Wei, Wei, Chang, Ganggang, Xie, Zhizhong, Guo, Wei, Liu, Dan, Qu, Deyu, Tang, Haolin, Li, Junsheng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
defects
hydrogen evolution
intrinsic activity
MoS2
Zn-doping
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) is considered as an alternative material for commercial platinum catalysts for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Improving the apparent HER activity of MoS2 to a level comparable to that of Pt is an essential premise for the commercial use of MoS2. In this work, a Zn‐doping strategy is proposed to enhance the HER performance of MoS2. It is shown that tiny Zn doping into MoS2 leads to the enhancement of the electrochemical surface area, increases in proportion of HER active 1T phase in the material and formation of catalytic sites of higher intrinsic activity. These benefits result in a high‐performance HER electrocatalyst with a low overpotential of 190 mV(@10 mA cm−2) and a low Tafel slope of 58 mV dec−1. The origin for the excellent electrochemical performance of the doped MoS2 is rationalized with both experimental and theoretical investigations. Zn‐doped MoS2 with S vacancies (Zn−Vs−MoS2, 1T phase) was developed for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution. Zn doping not only effectively increases the electrochemical specific surface area of MoS2 but also induces the formation of HER active 1T/2H−MoS2 phase and defects. Furthermore, it activates the in‐plane sites of 1T−MoS2 so that the density of active sites and the intrinsic activity of reactive sites can be increased simultaneously. Therefore, the improved HER activity and stability are finally achieved.
ISSN:0947-6539
1521-3765
DOI:10.1002/chem.202102803