Structural and Electronic Optimization of MoS2 Edges for Hydrogen Evolution

Hao Wang; Xu Xiao; Shuyuan Liu; Chao-Lung Chiang; Xiaoxiao Kuai; Chun-Kuo Peng; Yu-Chang Lin; Xing Meng; Jianqing Zhao; Jinho Choi; Yan-Gu Lin; Jong-Min Lee; Lijun Gao

doi:10.1021/jacs.9b09932

Structural and Electronic Optimization of MoS₂ Edges for Hydrogen Evolution

J Am Chem Soc. 2019 Nov 20;141(46):18578-18584. doi: 10.1021/jacs.9b09932. Epub 2019 Nov 6.

Authors

Hao Wang^{1

2}, Xu Xiao³, Shuyuan Liu¹, Chao-Lung Chiang⁴, Xiaoxiao Kuai¹, Chun-Kuo Peng^{4

5}, Yu-Chang Lin^{4

5}, Xing Meng^{3

6}, Jianqing Zhao¹, Jinho Choi¹, Yan-Gu Lin⁴, Jong-Min Lee², Lijun Gao¹

Affiliations

¹ Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials Innovations & Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, College of Energy , Soochow University , Suzhou 215006 , China.
² School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering , Nanyang Technological University , Singapore 637459 , Singapore.
³ A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute and Department of Materials Science and Engineering , Drexel University , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania 19104 , United States.
⁴ National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center , Hsinchu 30076 , Taiwan , R.O.C.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering , National Chiao Tung University , Hsinchu 30010 , Taiwan , R.O.C.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Physics and Technology for Advanced Batteries (Ministry of Education), College of Physics , Jilin University , Changchun 130012 , China.

PMID: 31692351
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b09932

Abstract

The activity and accessibility of MoS₂ edge sites are critical to deliver high hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) efficiency. Here, a porous carbon network confining ultrasmall N-doped MoS₂ nanocrystals (N-MoS₂/CN) is fabricated by a self-templating strategy, which realizes synergistically structural and electronic modulations of MoS₂ edges. Experiments and density functional theory calculations demonstrate that the N dopants could activate MoS₂ edges for HER, while the porous carbon network could deliver high accessibility of the active sites from N-MoS₂ nanocrystals. Consequently, N-MoS₂/CN possesses superior HER activity with an overpotential of 114 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and excellent stability over 10 h, delivering one of best MoS₂-based HER electrocatalysts. Moreover, this study opens a new venue for optimizing materials with enhanced accessible catalytic sites for energy-related applications.