Towards thermoneutral hydrogen evolution reaction using noble metal free molybdenum ditelluride/graphene nanocomposites

[Display omitted] •A single-step, fast (90 s), facile microwave-synthesis of MoTe2/graphene.•Excellent electrocatalytic performance for hydrogen evolution reaction.•Superior stability with high cathodic current density and low activation energy.•Near thermoneutral catalytic activity of MoTe2 /graphe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of colloid and interface science Vol. 581; pp. 847 - 859
Main Authors:	Sarwar, Shatila, Ali, Ashraf, Liu, Zhongqi, Li, Junhao, Uprety, Sunil, Lee, Horyun, Wang, Ruigang, Park, Minseo, Bozack, Michael J., Adamczyk, Andrew J, Zhang, Xinyu
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Elsevier Inc 01-01-2021
Subjects:	Density functional theory Hydrogen evolution reaction Material characterizations Microwave-initiated synthesis Molybdenum ditelluride/graphene Material characterizations Hydrogen evolution reaction Density functional theory Microwave-initiated synthesis Molybdenum ditelluride/graphene
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Summary:	[Display omitted] •A single-step, fast (90 s), facile microwave-synthesis of MoTe2/graphene.•Excellent electrocatalytic performance for hydrogen evolution reaction.•Superior stability with high cathodic current density and low activation energy.•Near thermoneutral catalytic activity of MoTe2 /graphene based on the DFT study. The development of efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen generation is an essential task to meet future energy demand. In recent years, molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) has triggered incredible research interests due to intrinsic nontrivial band gap with promising semi-metallic behaviors. In this work, 2D MoTe2 nanosheets have been synthesized uniformly on graphene substrate through ultra-fast microwave-initiated approach, that shows a superior hydrogen evolution in acidic medium with low overpotential (~150 mV), low activation energy (8.4362 ± 1.5413 kJ mol−1), along with a Tafel slope of 94.5 mV/decade. Interestingly, MoTe2/graphene exhibits the enhanced electrocatalytic stability during the long cycling test, resulting an increase in specific surface area of catalyst materials. Moreover, the results from periodic plane-wave density functional theory (DFT) indicate that, the best active sites are the corner of a Mo-atom and a critical bifunctional site comprised of adjacent Mo and Te edge atoms. Furthermore, the corresponding volcano plot reveals the near thermoneutral catalytic activity of MoTe2/graphene for hydrogen generation.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0021-9797 1095-7103
DOI:	10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.122