Modulating the local electronic state of metal compounds through interfacial interaction has become a key method for manufacturing high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts. The electron-rich active sites can promote the adsorption of hydrogen, which accelerates the Volmer step and thereby enhances the electrocatalytic performance of HER. Here, we found that the strong interfacial interaction between TiO nanodots (TiO/Co-S) and Co-S nanosheets could advantageously improve the performance toward HER of electrocatalyst. Meanwhile, XPS results showed that modulating the local electronic structure of the TiO nanodots produces electron-rich regions on Co. As a result, the overpotential of the TiO/Co-S nanocomposite at 10 mA cm-2 was 107 mV, and the Tafel slope was 83.3 mV dec-1 . This study focused on the effect of the solid-solid interface on the local electronic structure of the catalytic metal active sites and successfully improved the catalytic activity of transition metal materials in HER catalysis.
Keywords: cobalt sulfide; hydrogen evolution reaction; interface engineering; local electronic structure; titanium monoxide.
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