Fabrication of three-dimensional nanocomposite with open cage fullerene polymer and MoS2 for enhanced electrochemical hydrogen evolution activity

Abstract

Development of advanced materials for electrocatalytic water splitting to generate hydrogen is the key in utilization of renewable energy. In the present work, we constructed three-dimensional (3D) nanoparticles (P-PC60@MoS2) based on an open-cage fullerene polymer (P-PC60), on the surface of which two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) are grafted vertically. The rational design endows the nanocomposite materials with combined advantages of open-cage fullerenes and MoS2. Especially, compared with traditional fullerenes, polymeric fullerene derivatives are expected to have remarkable electronic, optical, or catalytic properties due to the formation of an interconnected continuous network. The results indicate that the few-layer MoS2 slices arranged vertically on the surface of the fullerene, showing an expanded layer spacing of 6.4 Å, which is beneficial for maximally exposing active edge sites. The hybrid P-PC60@MoS2 with proper synthetic engineering possesses superior catalytic kinetics with surpassing overpotential of 59 mV, Tafel slope of 37 mV dec−1, which are much lower than those of pure MoS2 and P-PC60. The small values indicate fast electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) kinetics.