As an electrocatalyst with abundant resources and great potential, molybdenum disulfide is regarded as one of the most likely alternatives to expensive noble-metals catalysts. However, it is still a challenge to achieve large scale production of few-layer MoS2 with enhancing activity of electrocatalytic hydrogen reaction at ambient conditions. Herein, we developed a simple environmentally friendly two-step method, which included intercalation reaction and a subsequent electrochemical reduction reaction for mass preparation of defect-rich desulfurized MoSx (D-MoSx ) nanosheets with plentiful sulfur vacancies. The ratio of sulfur-molybdenum atoms can be adjusted from 2 : 1 to 1.4 : 1 by regulating the desulfurization voltage. It was found that the HER catalytic activity of the D-MoSx was enhanced compared with that of pristine MoS2 (P-MoS2 ), the current density of D-MoSx (desulfurization at -1.0 V) at -0.3 V versus RHE was about 169% of the P-MoS2 , and the Tafel slope decreased to 136 mV dec-1 . This method can be widely applied to large-scale preparation of other two-dimensional materials.
Keywords: Large-scale; electrochemical reduction; environmentally friendly; hydrogen evolution reaction; molybdenum disulfide.
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