Symmetrical synergy of hybrid CoS2-WS2 electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction

A highly active and stable hybrid electrocatalyst 3D hierarchical CoS2 nanosheets incorporated with WS2 (CoS2@WS2) has been developed via a one-step sulfurization method for the first time, where the contents of WS2 can be adjusted easily. We first prove the addition of small amounts of WS2 enhances the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance of CoS2, and vise versa. In other words, we validated the symmetric synergy for HER between the Co- and W-based sulfide hybrid catalysts. In addition, we confirmed that the formation of nanointerfaces of Co-S-W between CoS2 and WS2 was responsible for the excellent HER activity (an overpotential of -97.2 mV at -10 mA/cm2, a small Tafel slope of 66.0 mV/dec, and prominent electrochemical stability) of hybrid electrocatalyst CoS2@WS2.

Citation

Zhou X, Yang X, Li henan, Hedhili MN, Huang K-W, et al. (2017) Symmetrical synergy of hybrid CoS2-WS2 electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction. J Mater Chem A. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c7ta03041j.

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51472164), the Natural Science Foundation of SZU (Grant No. 000050), the 1000 Talents Program for Young Scientists of China, the Educational Commission of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2015KGJHZ006), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2016B050501005) and the Educational Commission of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2016KCXTD006), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2016M592538), and KCC Center Competitive Funding (CCF) of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia.