Nanosheets for Alkaline Water Splitting

Nanosheets for Alkaline Water Splitting

Author: Chemistry – An Asian Journal

Electrochemical water splitting to produce hydrogen could be an important part of sustainable fuel generation in the future. Molybdenum diselenide (MoSe2) is a promising nonprecious-metal-based electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acidic media. However, it has inferior HER catalytic kinetics in alkaline solutions, mainly due to the sluggish water adsorption/dissociation process.

Wenping Sun, Haibo Yu, University of Wollongong, Australia, and colleagues have found that heteroatom-doped MoSe2 nanosheets can be used as highly active electrocatalysts for HER in alkaline media. The nanosheets were synthesized using a simple, one‐step hydrothermal method. A series of Ni‐doped MoSe2 nanosheets (NixMo1−xSe2, x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2) were obtained by varying the molar ratio of Ni and Mo.

The Ni-doped MoSe2 nanosheets have a high catalytic activity, a low overpotential, and a large exchange current density. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that Ni doping plays a key role in facilitating water adsorption and optimizing hydrogen adsorption. According to the team, the work could help with the development of low-cost and efficient electrocatalysts for alkaline water splitting.


 

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