NiS₂-Coated Carbon Fiber Paper Decorated with MoS₂ Nanosheets for Hydrogen Evolution

Abstract

It is of great significance to develop highly conductive catalysts combined with bimetal sulfide hybrids for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, an efficient electrocatalyst with NiS2@MoS2 nanosheet arrays decorating carbon fiber paper (NiS2@MoS2/CFP nanocatalyst) is synthesized through a two-step solvothermal process. Carbon fiber paper provides great electrical conductivity and stability for NiS2@MoS2/CFP. Moreover, MoS2 nanosheets are covered on the surface of the NiS2 nanosheet via a simple two-step temperature control method in a solvothermal process. The growth of two-dimensional NiS2 nanosheets improves the loading area of MoS2, thus providing plenty of electroactive sites. The obtained NiS2@MoS2/CFP delivers a competitive overpotential of 95 mV at the benchmark current density of 10 mA cm–2 and achieves a small Tafel slope of 65 mV dec–1, indicating the great HER performance of the NiS2@MoS2/CFP nanocatalyst. Moreover, NiS2@MoS2/CFP shows robust stability after 24 h of continuous operation toward the HER in an acidic solution. This work provides a method to design high-efficient HER electrocatalysts through combining bimetal sulfide hybrids with a conductive substrate.