Liquid phase exfoliated ReS2 nanocrystals on paper based electrodes for hydrogen evolution and supercapacitor applications

Abstract

Liquid phase exfoliated transition metal dichlcogenides have been considered as promising electrode materials for high performance electrocatalysts for water splitting and pseudocapacitors because they offer higher electrochemical activity than the bulk crystals owing to high concentration of edge active sites. The system model of binder-free electrode architecture is an expedient approach for enhancing the endurance of electrochemical supercapacitors. Herein, we report the flexible, large area and robust paper-based electrode functionalised by electrochemically active 1T-rehenium disulphide (ReS2) nanocrystals. 1T-ReS2 nanocrystals on cellulose paper electrode was used as binder free electrode that exhibits the low over potential of 170 mV and stable charge transport for 14 h. Extremely low series resistance of 2 Ω and charge transfer resistance of 5 Ω are achieved for electrically and electrochemically conducting electrodes. The high catalytic activity originates due to the S-atom. Paper based electrode also exhibits high specific capacitance of 133.0 F g–1 at scan rate of 2 mV s–1 and 124.1 F g–1 at 1 A g–1. Encouragingly, electrode demonstrate the retention of capacitance of more than 95% after 3000 cycles with advantage of being light weight. This research paves the foundation for the expansion of large-scale active catalysts using an intrinsic charge engineering approach. Structural and electronic properties are studied by first principles calculation.