WSe2/rGO hybrid structure: A stable and efficient catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction. (1st February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Jing; Liu, Ping; Qu, Yan; Liao, Tingdi; Xiang, Bin
• Is Part Of: International journal of hydrogen energy. Volume 43:Number 5(2018)
• Page Start: 2601
• Page End: 2609
• Publication Date: 2018-02-01
• Subjects: Hydrogen evolution reaction -- Transitional metal dichalcogenides -- Graphene -- Nanowires; Hydrogen as fuel -- Periodicals; Hydrogène (Combustible) -- Périodiques; Hydrogen as fuel; Periodicals; 665.81
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.12.160
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0360-3199

Abstract

Abstract: The number of exposed active sites in a catalyst plays a key role in determining its catalytic performance. However, the aggregation effect in nanostructured catalysts causes much less reactive sites exposed. In this paper, we report a novel structure of WSe2 /rGO with highly exposed WSe2 active edge sites by uniformly imbedding the rGO between each WSe2 nanosheets. With the introduction of rGO, the electron transport property of the WSe2 /rGO hybrid structure has also been enhanced. The structure and composition of the samples were investigated by the X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Our electrochemical characterizations confirm that the WSe2 /rGO hybrid structure exhibits enhanced electrochemical catalytic performance with a Tafel slop of 85 mV/dec for HER, much smaller than that of the pure WSe2 . Graphical abstract: SEM image of the WSe2 /rGO hybrid structure and the Tafel plots of WSe2 /rGO and WSe2 as well as commercial Pt. Highlights: We report a novel 1D WSe2 nanowires with homogeneous distribution of rGO. The rGO enhances the conductivity and suppresses the aggregations of the WSe2 . The composites exhibit impressive performances in the HER.