In Situ Porousized MoS ₂ Nano Islands Enhance HER/OER Bifunctional Electrocatalysis

Abstract

2D molybdenum disulfide (MoS ₂) is developed as a potential alternative non‐precious metal electrocatalyst for energy conversion. It is well known that 2D MoS ₂ has three main phases 2H, 1T, and 1T′. However, the most stable 2H‐phase shows poor electrocatalysis in its basal plane, compared with its edge sites. In this work, a facile one‐step hydrothermal‐driven in situ porousizing of MoS ₂ into self‐supporting nano islands to maximally expose the edges of MoS ₂ grains for efficient utilization of the active stable sites at the edges of MoS ₂ is reported. The results show that such active, aggregation‐free nano islands greatly enhance MoS ₂'s hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) bifunctional electrocatalytic activities. At a low overpotential of 248 and 300 mV, the porous MoS ₂ nano islands can generate a current density of 10 mA cm ⁻² in HER and OER, which is much better than typical nanosheet morphology. Surprisingly, the porous MoS ₂ nano islands even exhibit better performance than the current commercial RuO ₂ catalyst in OER. This discovery will be another effective strategy to promote robust 2H‐phase, instead of 1T/1T′‐phase, MoS ₂ to achieve efficient endurable bifunctional HER/OER, which is expected to further replace precious metal catalysts in industry.