Herein we topotactically reacted sulphur, S, with Mo2CTx MXene powders to synthesize Mo2CTx sheets covered by MoS2 nanosheets and tested the resulting material as a hydrogen evolution reaction, HER, electrocatalyst. As a result, a high electrochemical active surface area catalyst was obtained. It allows driving a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a low overpotential of only 150 mV. Stabilization of the water activated complex as well as interfacial charge transfer accompanied by changes in the adsorption energy hydrogen are most likely responsible for the high electrochemical activity. Moreover, no efficiency loss was observed under working conditions during 30 h in a 1 mol l−1 KOH electrolyte, confirming the remarkable electrochemical stability of this composite catalyst.
Authors: Mohamed Benchakar, Varun Natu, Tarek El-Melegy, Maxim Sokol, Joshua Snyder, Clément Comminges, Cláudia Morais, Stéphane Célérier, Aurélien Habrioux, Michel W. Barsoum
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/abad6e
Publish Year: 2020
