Xu, S, Xu, J, Liu, Y-Z et al. (5 more authors) (2019) Constructing Mono-/Di-/Tri-Types of Active Sites in MoS2 Film toward Understanding Their Electrocatalytic Activity for the Hydrogen Evolution. ACS Applied Energy Materials, 2 (12). pp. 8974-8984. ISSN 2574-0962
Abstract
The availability and catalytic activity of the cost-efficient electrocatalysts are the dominant factors for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance in the renewable hydrogen economy. Extensive efforts have been devoted to maximize the amount of various active sites in non-noble-metal electrocatalysts for HER. This work reported a physically sputtering strategy to construct porous and ordered 2H-MoS2 films with mono-/di-/tri-types of active sites via controlling the film thickness (from ∼15 to 3050 nm) in the energetic plasma. As the pure (2H-) MoS2 for HER electrocatalyst, the as-fabricated 3050 nm additive-free columnar film electrode shows a stable electrochemical activity for HER (an overpotential of 204 mV at a current density of −10 mA/cm2). Interestingly, the MoS2 film with controllable thickness can serve as an innovative platform to study the electrocatalytic activity of the customized different active sites (the exposed active edge of sheets (eE), stepped-termination surfaces (sS), and terrace on the basal planes (tB)) and the dependence of electrocatalytic efficiency of the vertically aligned MoS2 eE active sites on their distance to the current collector. The results first revealed that the tB active sites possessed almost the same electrocatalytic activity as that of the eE active sites but higher than the sS active sites. The electrocatalytic efficiency of the eE active sites decreased as their distances to the current collector were gradually increasing, due to the limited conductivity of the semiconductive 2H-MoS2 sheets. This work proposes and evaluates a facile strategy for replying to the question of how to investigate the electrocatalytic activities of various active sites in the electrocatalysts.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 American Chemical Society. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in ACS Applied Energy Materials. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | MoS2; physically sputtering strategy; various active sites; electrocatalytic activity; hydrogen evolution reaction |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mechanical Engineering (Leeds) > Institute of Functional Surfaces (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Jan 2020 11:58 |
Last Modified: | 26 Nov 2020 01:40 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Chemical Society (ACS) |
Identification Number: | 10.1021/acsaem.9b02084 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:155810 |