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Microscopic insights into the catalytic mechanisms of monolayer MoS2 and its heterostructures in hydrogen evolution reaction

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Abstract

Exploring high-efficient catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has become very urgent for resolving the energy related issues. Recently, two-dimensional layered MoS2 and its heterostructures with graphene or other traditional photocatalysts have presented great potentials for electrocatalytic and photocatalytic HER applications. On-site investigations of the atomic-scale structures and local electronic properties of the catalytically active sites are the key points for understanding the internal mechanisms, which however are hard to be achieved from the practical systems. Hereby, this review focuses on the recent progresses on the on-site scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy investigations of the atomic structures and electronic properties of the ultrahigh-vacuum deposited and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesized monolayer MoS2 and MoS2/graphene vertical stacks on the electrodes of Au(111) and Au foils. The correlations between the respective HER activities, edge types and edge electronic states are comparatively introduced. Secondly, this review also introduces the photocatalytic HER applications of CVD-grown MoS2/WS2 and WS2/MoS2 vertical stacks on Au foils, mainly considering of their type-II band alignments and the novel interlayer charge transfer behaviors. Finally, future research directions are also proposed for in-depth understanding of the catalytic mechanism, as well as for exploring more efficient HER catalysts.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51861135201, 51472008, 21473001, 51290272, and 61774003) and the Open Research Fund Program of the State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics (No. KF201601).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Min Hong, Jianping Shi, Yahuan Huan & Yanfeng Zhang

  2. Center for Nanochemistry (CNC), Beijing Science and Engineering Center for Nanocarbons, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Min Hong, Jianping Shi, Yahuan Huan, Qin Xie & Yanfeng Zhang

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  1. Min Hong
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  2. Jianping Shi
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Correspondence to Yanfeng Zhang.

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Hong, M., Shi, J., Huan, Y. et al. Microscopic insights into the catalytic mechanisms of monolayer MoS2 and its heterostructures in hydrogen evolution reaction. Nano Res. 12, 2140–2149 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2370-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2370-3

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