Ru x Se@MoS2 hybrid as a highly efficient electrocatalyst toward hydrogen evolution reaction

Qi Chen; Kefeng Wang; Jingjing Qin; Songzhu Wang; Wei Wei; Jingge Wang; Qi Shen; Peng Qu; Daosheng Liu

doi:10.1039/c9ra02873k

Ru _x Se@MoS₂ hybrid as a highly efficient electrocatalyst toward hydrogen evolution reaction

RSC Adv. 2019 May 1;9(24):13486-13493. doi: 10.1039/c9ra02873k. eCollection 2019 Apr 30.

Authors

Qi Chen^{1

2}, Kefeng Wang², Jingjing Qin², Songzhu Wang², Wei Wei², Jingge Wang³, Qi Shen⁴, Peng Qu², Daosheng Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering, Liaoning Shihua University Fushun 113001 Liaoning China dsliu05@126.com.
² Henan Engineering Center of New Energy Battery Materials, Henan Key Laboratory of Biomolecular Recognition and Sensing, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shangqiu Normal University Shangqiu 476000 Henan China wangkf2007@163.com.
³ School of Physics and Engineering, Henan University of Science and Technology Luoyang 471023 China.
⁴ College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Zhengzhou University Zhengzhou 450001 China.

Abstract

Alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) requires highly efficient and stable catalytic materials, the engineering of which needs overall consideration of the water dissociation process as well as the intermediate hydrogen adsorption process. Herein, a Ru _x Se@MoS₂ hybrid catalyst was synthesized by the decoration of MoS₂ with Ru _x Se nanoparticles through a two-step hydrothermal reaction. Due to the bifunctionality mechanism in which Ru promotes the water dissociation and the nearby Se atoms, unsaturated Mo and/or S atoms act as active sites for the intermediate hydrogen adsorption, the hybrid catalyst exhibits an exceptional HER performance in basic media with a rather low overpotential of 45 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 and a small Tafel slope of 42.9 mV dec^-1. The synergetic effect between Ru _x Se and MoS₂ not only enables more catalytically active sites, but also increases the inherent conductivity of the hybrid catalyst, leading to more favorable HER kinetics under both alkaline and acidic conditions. As a result, Ru _x Se@MoS₂ also demonstrates an enhanced catalytic activity toward HER in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ in comparison with pure Ru _x Se and MoS₂, which requires an overpotential of 120 mV to deliver a 10 mA cm^-2 current density and gives a Tafel slope of 72.2 mV dec^-1. In addition, the hybrid electrocatalyst also exhibits superior electrochemical stability during the long-term HER process in both acidic media and alkaline media.