Engineering the Electronic Structure of MoS2 Nanorods by N and Mn Dopants for Ultra-Efficient Hydrogen Production

By Tao Sun, Jun Wang, X. Chi, Yunxiang Lin, Zhongxin Chen, Xiang Ling, Chuntian Qiu, Yangsen Xu, Li Song, Wei Chen and 1 more. ACS Catalysis, 2018

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Developing economical and efficient electrocatalysts with nonprecious metals for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), especially in water-alkaline electrolyzers, is pivotal for large-scale hydrogen production. Recently, both density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental studies have demonstrated that earth-abundant MoS2 is a promising HER electrocatalyst in acidic solution. However, the HER kinetics of MoS2 in alkaline solution still suffer from a high overpotential (90–220 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm–2). Herein, we report a combined experimental and first-principle approach toward achieving an economical and ultraefficient MoS2-based electrocatalyst for the HER by fine-tuning the electronic structure of MoS2 nanorods with N and Mn dopants. The developed N,Mn codoped MoS2 catalyst exhibits an outstanding HER performance with overpotentials of 66 and 70 mV at 10 mA cm–2 in alkaline and phosphate-buffered saline media, respectively, and corresponding Tafel slopes of 50 and 65 mV de...

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eb8b22205055b3c966396b8ce965bea1fe24db95