Hydrothermal assisted morphology designed MoS 2 material as alternative cathode catalyst for PEM electrolyser application

Abstract

Available online xxxKeywords: Hydrothermal method MoS 2 Nano shapes HER PEM electrolyser Hydrogen production a b s t r a c t In this work, we developed a simple and cost-effective hydrothermal route to regulate the formation of molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) in different morphologies, like, nano-sheet, nano-capsule and nano-flake structure by controlling the reaction temperature and sulphur precursor employed. Such a fine tuning of different morphologies yields a leverage to obtain novel shapes with high surface area to employ them as suitable candidates for hydrogen evolution catalysts. Moreover, we report here the first time observation of MoS 2 nano-capsule formation via environmentally benign hydrothermal route and characterized them by X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption and desorption by Brunaer eEmmetteTeller (BET) method, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM) and X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. MoS 2 nanocapsules exhibits superior activity towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with a low over-potential of 120 mV (RHE), accompanied by large exchange current density and excellent stability in 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 solution. MoS 2 nano-capsule catalyst was coated on solid proton conducting membrane (Nafion) and IrO 2 as anode catalyst. The performance of the catalyst was evaluated in MEA mode for 200 h at 2 V without any degradation of electrocatalytic activity.ScienceDirect j o urn al h om epa ge: www.elsev ier.com/locate/he i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 6 ) 1 e1 0 http://dx.

Fabrication of a Robust PEM Water Electrolyzer Based on Non‐Noble Metal Cathode Catalyst: [Mo3S13]2− Clusters Anchored to N‐Doped Carbon Nanotubes

“…[ 19–24 ] Only few studies report a full cell performance analysis of PEMWE membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) using PGM‐free HER catalysts. [ 19,25–29 ] To our knowledge, the highest performances of a PEMWE cell using a non‐noble metal HER catalyst was obtained by Jaramilo's group, who tested and compared three MoS/MoP on carbon black (CB) catalysts. [ 19 ] Best performance was achieved for MoP|S‐CB, which reached current densities of up to ≈1.2 A cm −2 .…”

Earth-Abundant Electrocatalysts in Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolyzers

“…In early 2016 Kumar et al reported that a cell with a MoS 2 nanocapsule cathode maintained a current density of approximately 60 mA/cm 2 for 200 h at 2.0 V [106]. The cell consisted of a Nafion membrane and IrO 2 anode.…”

Transition metal dichalcogenides as catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction: The emblematic case of “inert” ZrSe2 as catalyst for electrolyzers

“…Currently, to the best of our knowledge, despite the impressive catalytic activity claimed and experimentally demonstrated for the TMDs, there are no commercial water electrolyzers based on these materials. In fact, only some proof‐of‐concept electrolyzers have been reported using, for example, MoS 2 , [ 46–49 ] RuTe 2 , [ 50 ] FeS 2 [ 51 ] and NbS 2 [ 52 ] as cathode materials. Such aspects indicate the need to systematically validate the use of TMDs as HER‐EC into practical electrolyzers to advance the technologies for the electrochemical hydrogen production.…”