Regulation of Sulfur Atoms in MoSx by Magneto-Electrodeposition for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction.

Abstract

Compared with crystalline molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) employed as an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst, amorphous MoSx exhibits better activity. To synthesize amorphous MoSx, electrodeposition serving as a convenient and time-saving method is successfully applied. However, the loading mass is hindered by limited mass transfer efficiency and the available active sites require further improvement. Herein, magneto-electrodeposition is developed to synthesize MoSx with magnetic fields up to 9 T to investigate the effects of a magnetic field in the electrodeposition processing, as well as the induced electrochemical performance. Owing to the magneto-hydrodynamic effect, the loading mass of MoSx is obviously increased, and the terminal S2- serving as the active site is enhanced. The optimized MoSx catalyst delivers outstanding HER performance, achieving an overpotential of 50mV at a current density of 10mA cm-2 and the corresponding Tafel slope of 59mV dec-1. The introduction of a magnetic field during the electrodeposition process will provide a novel route to prepare amorphous MoSx with improved electrochemical performance.