He, Y, Tang, P, Hu, Z et al. (28 more authors) (2020) Engineering grain boundaries at the 2D limit for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Nature Communications, 11 (1). 57. 57-. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Atom-thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have emerged as fascinating materials and key structures for electrocatalysis. So far, their edges, dopant heteroatoms and defects have been intensively explored as active sites for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) to split water. However, grain boundaries (GBs), a key type of defects in TMDs, have been overlooked due to their low density and large structural variations. Here, we demonstrate the synthesis of wafer-size atom-thin TMD films with an ultra-high-density of GBs, up to ~1012 cm−2. We propose a climb and drive 0D/2D interaction to explain the underlying growth mechanism. The electrocatalytic activity of the nanograin film is comprehensively examined by micro-electrochemical measurements, showing an excellent hydrogen-evolution performance (onset potential: −25 mV and Tafel slope: 54 mV dec−1), thus indicating an intrinsically high activation of the TMD GBs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Catalyst synthesis; Electrocatalysis; Two-dimensional materials |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemical & Process Engineering (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 14 Jan 2020 11:26 |
Last Modified: | 14 Jan 2020 11:26 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-019-13631-2 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:155542 |