A ternary hybrid of Zn-doped MoS2-RGO for highly effective electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Haixia Qian; Nanjun Huang; Jinhong Zheng; Zhenchao An; Xiaoshuang Yin; Ying Liu; Wenzhong Yang; Yun Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.04.052

A ternary hybrid of Zn-doped MoS₂-RGO for highly effective electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Oct:599:100-108. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.04.052. Epub 2021 Apr 14.

Authors

Haixia Qian¹, Nanjun Huang¹, Jinhong Zheng¹, Zhenchao An¹, Xiaoshuang Yin¹, Ying Liu¹, Wenzhong Yang¹, Yun Chen²

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, No. 30 Puzhu Road (S), Nanjing 211816, China.
² School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, No. 30 Puzhu Road (S), Nanjing 211816, China. Electronic address: ychen@njtech.edu.cn.

PMID: 33933784
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.04.052

Abstract

Modification of MoS₂-based catalysts is effective in solving the overdependence of hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs) on noble metal catalysts. In this work, a Zn-doped molybdenum disulfide-reduced graphene oxide (Zn-MoS₂-RGO) hybrid was synthesized in one step employing a hydrothermal method. By substituting the position of Mo, uniform doping with Zn improved the catalytic activity of MoS₂ for HER. The interlayer spacing of MoS₂ increased from 0.65 to 0.75 nm, demonstrating RGO effectively interpolate into MoS₂ nanosheets. This prevented aggregation and exposed more edge active sites of MoS₂. According to density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the layered structure of the MoS₂ nanosheets doped with Zn and intercalated with RGO promoted charge transfer and resulted in outstanding hydrogen evolution activity. Compared with MoS₂ (6.86 eV), the Zn-MoS₂-RGO hybrid (5.47 eV) with a considerably lower energy level value exhibited excellent electrocatalytic performance. Under optimal conditions, at a potential of -0.3 V vs. RHE, the current density reached -169 mA cm^-2 in a 0.5 M H₂SO₄ solution, 4.78 μmol of H₂ was produced in 6 h, and the Faraday efficiency reached 92%. The results obtained herein indicated that Zn-MoS₂-RGO was a promising candidate for application in electrocatalytic HER.

Keywords: Hydrogen evolution reaction; MoS(2); RGO; Water splitting; Zn-doped.