Self-optimizing layered hydrogen evolution catalyst with high basal-plane activity

Abstract

Hydrogen is a promising energy carrier and key agent for many industrial chemical processes1. One method for generating hydrogen sustainably is via the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), in which electrochemical reduction of protons is mediated by an appropriate catalyst-traditionally, an expensive platinum-group metal. Scalable production requires catalyst alternatives that can lower materials or processing costs while retaining the highest possible activity. Strategies have included dilute alloying of Pt2 or employing less expensive transition metal alloys, compounds or heterostructures (e.g., NiMo, metal phosphides, pyrite sulfides, encapsulated metal nanoparticles)3-5. Recently, low-cost, layered transition-metal dichalcogenides (MX2)6 based on molybdenum and tungsten have attracted substantial interest as alternative HER catalysts7-11. These materials have high intrinsic per-site HER activity; however, a significant challenge is the limited density of active sites, which are concentrated at the layer edges.8,10,11. Here we use theory to unravel electronic factors underlying catalytic activity on MX2 surfaces, and leverage the understanding to report group-5 MX2 (H-TaS2 and H-NbS2) electrocatalysts whose performance instead derives from highly active basal-plane sites. Beyond excellent catalytic activity, they are found to exhibit an unusual ability to optimize their morphology for enhanced charge transfer and accessibility of active sites as the HER proceeds. This leads to long cycle life and practical advantages for scalable processing. The resulting performance is comparable to Pt and exceeds all reported MX2 candidates.

References in corpus (3)

• Implicit solvation model for density-functional study of nanocrystal surfaces and reaction pathways
• Enhanced Catalytic Activity in Strained Chemically Exfoliated WS2 Nanosheets for Hydrogen Evolution
• Assessing carbon-based anodes for lithium-ion batteries: A universal description of charge-transfer binding

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Unsaturated Single Atoms on Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides for Ultrafast Hydrogen Evolution
• Structure, preparation, and applications of 2D material-based metal-semiconductor heterostructures
• Niobium disulphide (NbS${}_2$)-based (heterogeneous) electrocatalysts for an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction
• The key role of antibonding electron transfer in surface chemisorption and heterogeneous catalysis
• Extending the colloidal transition metal dichalcogenide library to ReS2 nanosheets for application in gas sensing and electrocatalysis
• Electrodeposition of amorphous molybdenum sulfo-selenide as a low-cost catalyst
• Underlying Structure-Activity Correlations of 2D Layered Transition Metal Dichalcogenides-Based Electrocatalysts for Boosted Hydrogen Generation
• Tunable structure-activity correlations of molybdenum dichalcogenides (MoX${}_2$; X= S, Se, Te) electrocatalysts via hydrothermal methods: insight into optimizing the electrocatalytic performance for hydrogen generation