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Electrodeposition of Ni-Co-S Electrocatalyst Using 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole as S Precursor for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction at Neutral pH

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Abstract

Among various chalcogenide materials, transition metal sulfides are known to be effective catalysts for the electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In particular, Ni-Co-S is a promising material for the next generation of non-precious metal HER catalysts due to its excellent HER activity in neutral pH solutions. Ni-Co-S is also advantageous in large-scale applications, as it enables relatively simple catalytic synthesis through electrodeposition. In this study, we employed a new S precursor, 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole (DMTD), for the electrodeposition of Ni-Co-S, instead of the conventional S precursor, thiourea (TU). Ni-Co-S synthesized with DMTD (Ni-Co-SDMTD) showed enhanced HER activity at neutral pH compared to that synthesized with TU (Ni-Co-STU). It has been found that this improvement in activity is due to the large surface area and high S content of Ni-Co-SDMTD. The S content and HER activity of Ni-Co-SDMTD depend on the concentration of DMTD. At the optimal DMTD concentration (12 mM), Ni-Co-SDMTD exhibited an overpotential of 303 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm− 2 and a Tafel slope of 99 mV dec− 1 in a phosphate buffer solution (pH 7.4).

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Data Availability

The data presented in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was supported by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (No. 2E31871). This research was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (No. NRF-2022R1F1A1074205).

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  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Soongsil University, 369 Sangdo-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, 06978, Republic of Korea

    Yeosol Yoon, Sehyun Yoo & Taeho Lim

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  1. Yeosol Yoon
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  2. Sehyun Yoo
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Contributions

Yeosol Yoon: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, and writing original draft; Sehyun Yoo: data curation, validation, and reviewing; Taeho Lim: conceptualization, resources, reviewing, editing, project administration, funding acquisition. All authors have approved the submission of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Taeho Lim.

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Yoon, Y., Yoo, S. & Lim, T. Electrodeposition of Ni-Co-S Electrocatalyst Using 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole as S Precursor for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction at Neutral pH. Electrocatalysis 14, 800–809 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12678-023-00837-8

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