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Activation of Ternary Transition Metal Chalcogenide Basal Planes through Chemical Strain for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction
Author(s) -
Kim Yongshin,
Tiwari Anand P.,
Prakash Om,
Lee Hyoyoung
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
chempluschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.801
H-Index - 61
ISSN - 2192-6506
DOI - 10.1002/cplu.201700164
Subject(s) - chalcogenide , overpotential , ternary operation , tafel equation , transition metal , materials science , nanostructure , nanotechnology , chemical engineering , catalysis , chemistry , electrochemistry , metallurgy , organic chemistry , electrode , computer science , engineering , programming language
Catalytically inactive basal planes pose challenges for the efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in two‐dimensional (2 D) transition metal chalcogenide (TMC) nanosheets. Herein, a new hybrid structure is reported in which zero‐dimensional TMC nanodots (NDs) are decorated on the basal planes of 2 D nanosheets of TMCs to enhance their catalytic activity towards the HER process. A novel process is developed to fabricate a hybrid Cu 2 MoS 4 (2 D ternary transition metal chalcogenide Cu 2 MoS 4 nanosheets)/MoSe 2 (0 D binary transition metal chalcogenide MoSe 2 ND) nanostructure by controlling the size of the MoSe 2 NDs to enhance the HER activity. In acidic media, this optimal hybrid Cu 2 MoS 4 /MoSe 2 nanostructure achieves excellent catalytic activity for HER, which exhibits a low overpotential of 166 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 , which corresponds to a Tafel slope of 74.7 mV dec −1 . In addition, the synthesized hybrid nanostructure shows excellent stability when under acidic medium for 16 h of continuous electrolysis. Therefore, it is suggested that our strategy may open a new path for the design of hybrid nanostructures by using ternary transition metal chalcogenides (TTMCs) with binary transition metal chalcogenides (BTMCs) for alternative non‐noble metal catalysts towards HER.