Three-dimensional nitrogen-doped graphene supported molybdenum disulfide nanoparticles as an advanced catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

Haifeng Dong*, Conghui Liu, Haitao Ye, Linping Hu, Bunshi Fugetsu, Wenhao Dai, Yu Cao, Xueqiang Qi, Huiting Lu, Xueji Zhang

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    An efficient three-dimensional (3D) hybrid material of nitrogen-doped graphene sheets (N-RGO) supporting molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanoparticles with high-performance electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is fabricated by using a facile hydrothermal route. Comprehensive microscopic and spectroscopic characterizations confirm the resulting hybrid material possesses a 3D crumpled few-layered graphene network structure decorated with MoS2 nanoparticles. Electrochemical characterization analysis reveals that the resulting hybrid material exhibits efficient electrocatalytic activity toward HER under acidic conditions with a low onset potential of 112 mV and a small Tafel slope of 44 mV per decade. The enhanced mechanism of electrocatalytic activity has been investigated in detail by controlling the elemental composition, electrical conductance and surface morphology of the 3D hybrid as well as Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. This demonstrates that the abundance of exposed active sulfur edge sites in the MoS2 and nitrogen active functional moieties in N-RGO are synergistically responsible for the catalytic activity, whilst the distinguished and coherent interface in MoS2/N-RGO facilitates the electron transfer during electrocatalysis. Our study gives insights into the physical/chemical mechanism of enhanced HER performance in MoS2/N-RGO hybrids and illustrates how to design and construct a 3D hybrid to maximize the catalytic efficiency.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number17542
    Number of pages11
    JournalScientific Reports
    Volume5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 7 Dec 2015

    Bibliographical note

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

    Supplementary Information: http://www.nature.com/article-assets/npg/srep/2015/151207/srep17542/extref/srep17542-s1.doc

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