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Synergistic effect between Er-doped MoS2 nanosheets and interfacial Mo–N coupling phases for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

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Hydrogen production via electrochemical water splitting is a promising and green technology. As one of the most representative transition metal sulfides layered materials, Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has immense potential for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). We successfully prepared a nitrogen-doped carbon (NC) in situ-grown erbium-doped MoS2 polyhedral structure (Er-MoS2/NC) that incorporates an interfacial Mo–N coupling phase. The Er-MoS2/NC catalyst possesses superior HER catalytic activity with a overpotential of 5 mV at the current density of 10 mA·cm-2 and a small Tafel slope about 76 mV·dec-1 along with excellent stability. The synergistic effect of rare-earth doping and the interfacial Mo–N coupling phase effectively modifies the electronic structure of layered MoS2 by increasing the exposed active sites and further lowering the hydrogen adsorption energy. The present work offers a new avenue for synthesizing multilayer nanostructured materials to improve the performance of sulfide-based materials for electrocatalytic HER.

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摘要

通过电催化分解水制氢是一项很有前途的绿色技术。作为最具代表性的过渡金属硫化物层状材料之一，二硫化钼（MoS2）在析氢反应（HER）方面具有巨大的潜力。我们成功地制备了一种氮碳骨架（NC）上原位生长的铒掺杂二硫化钼多面体结构（Er-MoS2/NC），其中包含了界面Mo-N耦合相。Er-MoS2/NC催化剂具有优异的HER催化活性，在电流密度为10 mA·cm-2时，过电位为55 mV，Tafel斜率较小，约为76 mV·dec-1，并且具有良好的稳定性。稀土掺杂和界面Mo-N耦合相的协同作用增加了暴露的活性位点和进一步降低氢吸附能量，有效地改变了层状MoS2的电子结构。本工作为合成多层纳米结构材料提供了一个新的策略，以改善硫化物材料的电催化析氢的性能。

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Science Foundation of Donghai Laboratory (No. DH-2022KF0314), the Open Fund of Hubei Longzhong Laboratory (No. 2022KF07), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. U2002213 and 21975001), the Open Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Featured Metal Materials and Life-cycle Safety for Composite Structures (No. 2022GXYSOF10), the Support Program of Excellent Young Talents in Anhui Provincial Colleges and Universities (No. gxyqZD2022034) and the Double First Class University Plan (No. C176220100042).

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  1. Nian-Peng Li, Lei Zhang and Hua Zhang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mining Response and Disaster Prevention and Control in Deep Coal Mines, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, 232001, China

    Nian-Peng Li, Lei Zhang & Fan-Fei Min

  2. Donghai Laboratory, Zhoushan, 316021, China

    Hua Zhang & Guang-Zhi Hu

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota-Duluth, Duluth, MN, 55812, USA

    Lei Wang & Sam Toan

  4. School of Ecology and Environmental Science, Institute for Ecological Research and Pollution Control of Plateau Lakes, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650504, China

    Nian-Peng Li, Hua Zhang & Guang-Zhi Hu

  5. MOE Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Non-Ferrous Metals and Materials, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-Ferrous Metals and Featured Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China

    Xi-Jun Liu

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  1. Nian-Peng Li
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Li, NP., Zhang, L., Zhang, H. et al. Synergistic effect between Er-doped MoS2 nanosheets and interfacial Mo–N coupling phases for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution. Rare Met. 43, 1301–1308 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-023-02409-7

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