Towards thermoneutral hydrogen evolution reaction using noble metal free molybdenum ditelluride/graphene nanocomposites

Shatila Sarwar; Ashraf Ali; Zhongqi Liu; Junhao Li; Sunil Uprety; Horyun Lee; Ruigang Wang; Minseo Park; Michael J Bozack; Andrew J Adamczyk; Xinyu Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.122

Towards thermoneutral hydrogen evolution reaction using noble metal free molybdenum ditelluride/graphene nanocomposites

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Jan 1;581(Pt B):847-859. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.122. Epub 2020 Jul 29.

Authors

Shatila Sarwar¹, Ashraf Ali², Zhongqi Liu³, Junhao Li⁴, Sunil Uprety⁵, Horyun Lee⁶, Ruigang Wang⁷, Minseo Park⁸, Michael J Bozack⁹, Andrew J Adamczyk¹⁰, Xinyu Zhang¹¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: szs0134@auburn.edu.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: aza0164@auburn.edu.
³ Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA. Electronic address: zliu90@ua.edu.
⁴ Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA. Electronic address: jli173@ua.edu.
⁵ Department of Physics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: szu0007@auburn.edu.
⁶ Department of Physics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: hzl0121@auburn.edu.
⁷ Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA. Electronic address: rwang54@ua.edu.
⁸ Department of Physics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: parkmi2@auburn.edu.
⁹ Department of Physics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: bozacmj@auburn.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: aja0056@auburn.edu.
¹¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: xzz0004@auburn.edu.

PMID: 32818685
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.122

Abstract

The development of efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen generation is an essential task to meet future energy demand. In recent years, molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe₂) has triggered incredible research interests due to intrinsic nontrivial band gap with promising semi-metallic behaviors. In this work, 2D MoTe₂ nanosheets have been synthesized uniformly on graphene substrate through ultra-fast microwave-initiated approach, that shows a superior hydrogen evolution in acidic medium with low overpotential (~150 mV), low activation energy (8.4362 ± 1.5413 kJ mol^-1), along with a Tafel slope of 94.5 mV/decade. Interestingly, MoTe₂/graphene exhibits the enhanced electrocatalytic stability during the long cycling test, resulting an increase in specific surface area of catalyst materials. Moreover, the results from periodic plane-wave density functional theory (DFT) indicate that, the best active sites are the corner of a Mo-atom and a critical bifunctional site comprised of adjacent Mo and Te edge atoms. Furthermore, the corresponding volcano plot reveals the near thermoneutral catalytic activity of MoTe₂/graphene for hydrogen generation.

Keywords: Density functional theory; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Material characterizations; Microwave-initiated synthesis; Molybdenum ditelluride/graphene.