Edge-terminated molybdenum disulfide with a 9.4-A interlayer spacing for electrochemical hydrogen production.

ABSTRACT: Layered molybdenum disulfide has demonstrated great promise as a low-cost alternative to platinum-based catalysts for electrochemical hydrogen production from water. Research effort on this material has focused mainly on synthesizing highly nanostructured molybdenum disulfide that allows the exposure of a large fraction of active edge sites. Here we report a promising microwave-assisted strategy for the synthesis of narrow molybdenum disulfide nanosheets with edge-terminated structure and a significantly expanded interlayer spacing, which exhibit striking kinetic metrics with onset potential of -103?mV, Tafel slope of 49?mV per decade and exchange current density of 9.62 × 10(-3) mA?cm(-2), performing among the best of current molybdenum disulfide catalysts. Besides benefits from the edge-terminated structure, the expanded interlayer distance with modified electronic structure is also responsible for the observed catalytic improvement, which suggests a potential way to design newly advanced molybdenum disulfide catalysts through modulating the interlayer distance.

SUBMITTER: Gao MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4507019 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature