Catalytically inactive basal planes pose challenges for the efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in two-dimensional (2 D) transition metal chalcogenide (TMC) nanosheets. Herein, a new hybrid structure is reported in which zero-dimensional TMC nanodots (NDs) are decorated on the basal planes of 2 D nanosheets of TMCs to enhance their catalytic activity towards the HER process. A novel process is developed to fabricate a hybrid Cu2 MoS4 (2 D ternary transition metal chalcogenide Cu2 MoS4 nanosheets)/MoSe2 (0 D binary transition metal chalcogenide MoSe2 ND) nanostructure by controlling the size of the MoSe2 NDs to enhance the HER activity. In acidic media, this optimal hybrid Cu2 MoS4 /MoSe2 nanostructure achieves excellent catalytic activity for HER, which exhibits a low overpotential of 166 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 , which corresponds to a Tafel slope of 74.7 mV dec-1 . In addition, the synthesized hybrid nanostructure shows excellent stability when under acidic medium for 16 h of continuous electrolysis. Therefore, it is suggested that our strategy may open a new path for the design of hybrid nanostructures by using ternary transition metal chalcogenides (TTMCs) with binary transition metal chalcogenides (BTMCs) for alternative non-noble metal catalysts towards HER.
Keywords: chalcogenides; chemical strain; hydrogen evolution reaction; nanohybrid structure.
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