Advanced science: killing two birds with one stone

The preparation of high efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction by

is the key to promote the sustainable development of new energy economy. Layered transition metal chalcogenides (TMDs) are a class of typical two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials. In recent years great progress has been made in catalysis energy storage due to its special physical chemical electrical properties. As solar energy is a kind of clean sustainable energy photocatalytic photoelectrochemical (PEC) water decomposition technology driven by solar energy has become one of the hot spots of international materials science research. Rhenium diselenide (ReSe2) is a TMDs compound with unique properties. Its twisted 1t phase crystal structure excellent photoelectric properties guarantee its high hydrogen evolution activity rapid response to visible light. Therefore ReSe2 based electrocatalysts are often combined with visible light to improve their catalytic performance for hydrogen evolution. Although it has been proved that the rare layer ReSe2 nanosheets can integrate optical properties electrocatalytic applications enhance their catalytic performance by utilizing photogenerated electrons. However the number of hot electrons that can be injected into the edge active site of ReSe2 is still very limited. The main reasons are as follows: (1) the hot electrons can not be used effectively due to the rapid recombination of electron hole. (2) The low mobility short diffusion length of hot electrons further increase the difficulty of injection. (3) The optical absorption of ReSe2 is mostly concentrated in the visible region there is still room for improvement in the broad-spectrum solar response. These factors seriously restrict the practical application further development of ReSe2.

to solve the above problems Professor Song Bo of Harbin University of Technology prepared molybdenum doped rhenium selenide (re1-xmoxse2) nanosheets= In addition its excellent performance in photo enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution (pe-her) was described in detail. The results show that Mo doping optimizes the electronic structure of ReSe2 increases the concentration of catalytic active sites improves the conductivity promotes the electron transfer significantly improves the her performance of ReSe2 nanosheets. The hydrogen evolution overpotential decreased from 239 MV to 174 MV at 10 Ma cm-2 current density. In addition the introduction of Mo atoms leads to the formation of an intermediate b in the ReSe2 semiconductor which widens the spectral absorption range. At the same time the Auger recombination of electron hole pairs in ReSe2 is enhanced by appropriate Mo doping which improves the lifetime of hot electrons enables them to be effectively injected into the active sites. Under AM 1.5 sunlight the hydrogen evolution overpotential further decreased to 137 MV. Finally the pe-her overpotential of ReSe2 decreased by 102 MV before after doping. The researchers believe that this work will provide a new idea for the study of high efficiency light enhanced hydrogen evolution catalyst

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