Molybdenum disulfide is regarded as the inheritor of Pt-based catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), arising from low-cost and abundant resource. However, the electrocatalytic efficiency of MoS₂ is much lower than that of Pt-based catalysts, as a result of lacking edge active sites, poor activity of basal plane, and deficient conductivity. Herein, by introducing nanoflower-like MoS₂ with PVP coating (PVP@MoS₂) as catalyst, high performance for HER is observed. The higher efficiency of PVP@MoS₂ is mainly due to the four points: (1) the formation of more spatial manipulated nanoflower structure by thin MoS₂ slices exposing large amount of edge active sites; (2) improving basal plane atom utilization with the enlarged (002) plane from 6.2 to 6.8 Å; (3) the intrinsic conductivity of MoS₂ increases, because the electron can transfer from C=O and C–N to MoS₂; (4) the decreased hydrogen atom absorption energy from 0.815 to 0.684 eV extracts from DFT calculation. Therefore, the synergetic effect of the micro/nano-structure and electronic structure offers a simple, effective, and possible way for many other 2D materials to enhance their electrocatalytic HER activity.

Graphical Abstract

二硫化钼被认为是低成本和丰富资源产生的Pt基催化剂，用于氢释放反应（HER）。但是，由于缺少边缘活性位，基面活性差和电导率不足，MoS ₂的电催化效率远低于Pt基催化剂。在此，通过引入具有PVP涂层（PVP @ MoS ₂）作为催化剂的纳米花状MoS ₂，观察到HER的高性能。PVP @ MoS ₂的较高效率主要归因于以下四个方面：（1）通过薄MoS ₂形成更多空间可操纵的纳米花结构暴露大量边缘活性部位的切片；（2）通过扩大（002）平面从6.2到6.8Å来提高基面原子的利用率；（3）MoS ₂的固有电导率增加，因为电子可以从C = O和C–N转移到MoS ₂；（4）从DFT计算中提取的氢原子吸收能从0.815 eV降低到0.684 eV。因此，微/纳米结构与电子结构的协同效应为许多其他2D材料增强其电催化HER活性提供了一种简单，有效且可能的方式。

图形概要