Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Benck, Jesse D
• Chen, Zhebo
• Kuritzky, Leah Y
• Forman, Arnold J
• Jaramillo, Thomas F

Titel

Amorphous Molybdenum Sulfide Catalysts for Electrochemical Hydrogen Production: Insights into the Origin of their Catalytic Activity

Ist Teil von

• ACS catalysis, 2012-09, Vol.2 (9), p.1916-1923

Ort / Verlag

American Chemical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We present a scalable wet chemical synthesis for a catalytically active nanostructured amorphous molybdenum sulfide material. The catalyst film is one of the most active nonprecious metal materials for electrochemical hydrogen evolution, drawing 10 mA/cm2 at ∼200 mV overpotential. To identify the active phase of the material, we perform X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy after testing under a variety of conditions. As deposited, the catalyst resembles amorphous MoS3, but domains resembling MoS2 in composition and chemical state are created under reaction conditions and may contribute to this material’s high electrochemical activity. The activity scales with electrochemically active surface area, suggesting that the rough, nanostructured catalyst morphology also contributes substantially to the film’s high activity. Electrochemical stability tests indicate that the catalyst remains highly active throughout prolonged operation. The overpotential required to attain a current density of 10 mA/cm2 increases by only 57 mV after 10 000 reductive potential cycles. Our enhanced understanding of this highly active amorphous molybdenum sulfide hydrogen evolution catalyst may facilitate the development of economical electrochemical hydrogen production systems.