NiS x @MoS 2 heterostructure prepared by atomic layer deposition as high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction electro

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ATOMIC LAYER DEPOSITION FOR EMERGING THIN-FILM MATERIALS AND APPLICATIONS

NiSx@MoS2 heterostructure prepared by atomic layer deposition as high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalysts in alkaline media Zuyun He1, Zheng Guo2, Qingbo Wa2, Xiao Zhong1,3, Xinwei Wang2

, Yan Chen1,a)

1

Guangzhou Key Laboratory for Surface Chemistry of Energy Materials, Guangdong Engineering and Technology and Research Center for Surface Chemistry of Energy Materials, State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China 2 School of Advanced Materials, Shenzhen Graduate School, Peking University, Shenzhen 518055, China 3 Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou 350002, China a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] Received: 7 September 2019; accepted: 4 October 2019

Developing low-cost and high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts is essential for the development of hydrogen energy. While transition metal sulfides are reported as promising HER electrocatalysts, their performance still requires further improvement for practical application. In this work, we report a strategy to construct NiSx@MoS2 heterostructures with a well-defined interface structure by growing NiSx nanoclusters on MoS2 nanosheets through atomic layer deposition (ALD). NiSx@MoS2 heterostructures exhibit strongly enhanced HER activity with lower overpotential and faster reaction dynamic compared to MoS2 and NiSx single phases. The enhanced performance is attributed to improved adsorption of the reaction intermediates and the facilitated charge transfer process near the MoS2/NiSx interfaces. Besides high activity, NiSx@MoS2 heterostructures also exhibit high stability in alkaline media. The methodology and knowledge in this work can guide the rational design of high-performance electrocatalysts through hetero-interface engineering.

Introduction Hydrogen is considered to be one of the most important energy carriers due to its high energy density and environmental friendliness. Currently, most of the hydrogen are still produced from fossil fuels. Although electrochemical water splitting is believed to be a promising alternative approach for hydrogen production, its practical applications are strongly limited by the lack of cheap and highly efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) [1]. The mostly commonly used electrocatalysts for HER are noble metal-based materials, such as Pt/C. To lower the device prices, there have been great efforts for the synthesis of noble metal-free electrocatalysts, such as transition metal sulfides [2, 3, 4, 5], oxides [6, 7, 8, 9, 10], and carbides [11]. However, their performances still need to be further enhanced for competing with noble metal-based electrocatalysts for practical applications.

ª Materials Research Society 2019

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