Tuning the activity of nanoplatelet MoS2-based catalyst for efficient hydrogen evolution via electrochemical decoration with Pt nanoparticles

This study establishes a novel methodology for increasing the HER activity of the molybdenum substrate covered with amorphous molybdenum sulfide-oxide nano-structured film up to ultra-high level. We show that utilization of such nanoplatelet/nanoflowered film as electrocatalyst for HER in the sulfuric acidic solution cell with Pt anode and Ag/AgCl, KCl reference leads to obvious structural transformations and nice decoration of nanoplatelet edges with few-nm sized Pt nanoparticles. By this way, a surprising HER efficiency attaining 160 mA cm(-2) current density at 200 mV and 260 mA cm(-2) at 300 mV vs RHE overpotentials with the onset of reaction close to the one carried out at the bulk Pt electrode was obtained. To the best of our knowledge, these HER characteristics are among the best reported to date for hybrid MoS2-based HER electrocatalysts. The results obtained were confirmed by SEM, XPS, XRD, conductive mode AFM and cyclic voltammetry. It is worth noticing that to achieve this synergetic effect only about 0.5 tig cm(-2) of Pt is required. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.