Issue 82, 2017

One-pot hydrothermal synthesis and selective etching method of a porous MoSe2 sand rose-like structure for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

The development of a platinum-free electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is highly essential to the large-scale production and application of water splitting devices. Herein we report a facile one-pot hydrothermal synthesis of composite MoSe2@Cu2Se. The morphology of the obtained material was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and it was found that the composite material formed a sand rose-like structure. The crystal structure and phase purity of the composite MoSe2@Cu2Se were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Then a selective electrochemical etching of copper from the composite was carried out and the porous MoSe2 rose-like nanosphere was obtained. The robust 3D MoSe2 rose-like structure exhibit remarkable activity and durability for electrocatalytic HER in acid maintaining a small onset overpotential of ∼150 mV and keeping a small overpotential of 300 mV for 6 mA cm−2 current density after 1000 cycles. Based on our data, the obtained porous sand rose-like structure material could improve the active surface area which yields higher HER catalytic activity. The present study provides a simple and effective way for the exploration of efficient Mo-based HER catalysts.

Graphical abstract: One-pot hydrothermal synthesis and selective etching method of a porous MoSe2 sand rose-like structure for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Sep 2017
Accepted
26 Oct 2017
First published
10 Nov 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 52345-52351

One-pot hydrothermal synthesis and selective etching method of a porous MoSe2 sand rose-like structure for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction

X. T. Tran, S. Poorahong and M. Siaj, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 52345 DOI: 10.1039/C7RA10001A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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