N,P-dual doped molybdenum disulfide nanosheets for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

The need to develop non precious electrocatalysts for effective hydrogen evolution reaction, towards clean and sustainable energy resources has emerged as the prime issue from the perspective of material scientists. Here in this work, we show that synergistic effect of chemical co-doping with nitrogen and phosphorus activates the inert basal planes and aids in faster electron transfer to achieve extraordinarily enhanced hydrogen evolution reaction in acidic medium. The synthesized N,P-dual doped Molybdenum disulfide nanosheets exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity for HER with a Tafel slope of 92 mVdec−1 and a low overpotential of 0.295 V (vs RHE without iR compensation) at 10 mAcm−2. The synthesized samples exhibited satisfactory stability in the acidic medium with just 0.016 mV loss of the onset potential at the current density 60 mAcm−2.