Synergistic Phase and Disorder Engineering in 1T‐MoSe2 Nanosheets for Enhanced Hydrogen‐Evolution Reaction

• DOI: 10.1002/adma.201700311
• Publication Date: 2017-05-19T06:33:33Z
• Authors: Ying Yin; Yumin Zhang; Tangling Gao; Tai Yao; Xinghong Zhang; Jiecai Han; Xianjie Wang; Zhihua Zhang; Ping Xu; Peng Zhang; Xingzhong Cao; Bo Song; Song Jin
• Keywords: Overpotential; Reversible hydrogen electrode

MoSe2 is a promising earth-abundant electrocatalyst for the hydrogen-evolution reaction (HER), even though it has received much less attention among layered dichalcogenide (MX2 ) materials than MoS2 so far. Here, novel hydrothermal-synthesis strategy presented to achieve simultaneous and synergistic modulation of crystal phase disorder in partially crystallized 1T-MoSe2 nanosheets dramatically enhance their HER catalytic activity. Careful structural characterization defect using positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy correlated with electrochemical measurements show that formation 1T under large excess NaBH4 reductant during synthesis can effectively improve intrinsic activity conductivity, disordered structure from lower temperature provide abundant unsaturated defects as active sites. Such effects lead superior an overpotential 152 mV versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) electrocatalytic current density j = -10 mA cm-2 , Tafel slope 52 dec-1 . This work paves new pathway improving generally MX2 -based electrocatalysts via strategy.