In Situ Engineering of Double-Phase Interface in Mo/Mo2C Heteronanosheets for Boosted Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

By Xiong, Jie; Li, Jing; Shi, Jiawei; Zhang, Xinlei; Suen, Nian-Tzu; Liu, Zhao; Huang, Yunjie; Xu, Guoxiao; Cai, Weiwei; Lei, Xinrong; Feng, Ligang; Yang, Zehui; Huang, Liang; Cheng, Hansong
Published in ACS Energy Letters 2018

Abstract

Two-dimensional Mo/Mo2C heteronanosheets (Mo/Mo2C-HNS) were successfully prepared via a NaCl template-assisted synthesis route followed by a controllable simultaneous reduction and carbonization of MoO3 nanosheets for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysis under both acidic and alkaline conditions. The Mo species in the atomically thin Mo/Mo2C-HNS not only guarantees the rapid transport of electrons but also optimizes the electronic configuration of ?-Mo2C. Besides, the abundant Mo/?-Mo2C heterointerfaces in nanodimension afford large numbers of additional heterogeneous catalytic sites. HER electrocatalytic performance with overpotential of merely 89 mV to drive a current density of 10 mA/cm2 in 0.5 M H2SO4 is therefore achieved. Strikingly, stable chronoamperometric electrolysis for 20 h and also an impressive cycling stability with negligible overpotential decay over 4000 sweeps demonstrate its considerable durability in an acidic environment. These findings highlight the promising potential of Mo/Mo2C-HNS catalyst as an efficient and stable noble metal-free electrocatalyst toward the HER.

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