Interfacial engineering of 3D hollow CoSe2@ultrathin MoSe2 core@shell heterostructure for efficient pH-universal hydrogen evolution reaction
Lili Zhang, Yuanting Lei, Danni Zhou, Chengli Xiong, Zhuoli Jiang, Xinyuan Li, Huishan Shang, Yafei Zhao, Wenxing Chen, Bing Zhang
Abstract
Rational design and construction of low-cost and highly efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is meaningful but challenging. Herein, a robust three dimensional (3D) hollow CoSe 2 @ultrathin MoSe 2 core@shell heterostructure (CoSe 2 @MoSe 2 ) is proposed as an efficient HER electrocatalyst through interfacial engineering. Benefitting from the abundant heterogeneous interfaces on CoSe 2 @MoSe 2 , the exposed edge active sites are maximized and the charge transfer at the hetero-interfaces is accelerated, thus facilitating the HER kinetics. It exhibits remarkable performance in pH-universal conditions. Notably, it only needs an overpotential ( η 10 ) of 108 mV to reach a current density of 10 mA·cm −2 in 1.0 M KOH, outperforming most of the reported transition metal selenides electrocatalysts. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations unveil that the heterointerfaces synergistically optimize the Gibbs free energies of H 2 O and H* during alkaline HER, accelerating the reaction kinetics. The present work may provide new construction guidance for rational design of high-efficient electrocatalysts.