Surface reconstruction of heterostructures in alkaline medium towards enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

• Published in: Rare metals Vol. 43; no. 6; pp. 2636 - 2647
• Main Authors: Yang, Ming-Yang, Yuan, Ji, Fu, Xue-Lian, Chen, Jing-Jing, Hu, Jing, Lu, Zhou-Guang, Liu, Chen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Nonferrous Metals Society of China 01-06-2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomaterials; Catalysts; Chemistry and Materials Science; Electrocatalysts; Energy; Heterostructures; Hydrogen evolution reactions; Interface stability; Materials Engineering; Materials Science; Metallic Materials; Nanorods; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Nickel sulfide; Original Article; Physical Chemistry; Reconstruction; Vanadium oxides; Water splitting; Surface reconstruction; S; @VO; Ni; Water dissociation; Alkaline hydrogen evolution; Heterostructures
• ISSN: 1001-0521; 1867-7185
• DOI: 10.1007/s12598-024-02625-9

Constructing heterostructures has proved to be a successful strategy to fabricate electrocatalysts with high efficiency for water splitting. However, the structure evolution in alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction lacks investigation and the specific active center remains disputable. Herein, we take the well-designed Ni
3
S
2
@VO
2
heterostructures as a model to investigate the electrocatalytic activity and the surface reconstruction process of heterostructure catalysts in alkaline electrolyte. The Ni
3
S
2
@VO
2
heterostructures, with Ni
3
S
2
nanorods as the core and VO
2
nanoflakes as the shell, coupled with the high conductive Ni
3
S
2
, the hydrophilic VO
2
and modulated electronic structures at the interfaces, exhibited prominent activity and superior stability at various current densities. Further, the ex-situ characterizations confirmed that the surface reconstruction from Ni
3
S
2
@VO
2
into Ni
3
S
2
@amorphous-Ni(OH)
2
in alkaline media could optimize the water dissociation barrier and exposed large active area, thereby contributing to improved electrocatalytic performance. Our study not only introduces novel high-performance electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), but also provides a new avenue for re-examining hetero-structural catalysts in alkaline solutions.
Graphical abstract