Assembly of Single-atom Iron on Molybdenum Disulfide and Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction
QIN Chao, ZHANG Xin, ZHOU Yilun, MENG Zeda, LIU Shouqing
School of Chemistry and Life Science, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Environmental Functional Materials, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215009, Jiangsu, China
Abstract: The precious metal Pt has the highest hydrogen evolution activity, but its high price limits its widespread application. Therefore, the research and development of high-activity and low-cost hydrogen evolution electrocatalytic materials is of great significance to the development of the hydrogen energy industry. In this work, a two-step hydrothermal reaction method was used to successfully assemble single-atoms of Fe on molybdenum sulfide, prepared ofresulting in single-atoms of Fe on MoS2 to form Fe-MoS2 electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution material. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), high-angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and electron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to characterize and analyze the synthesized Fe-MoS2. XRD results showed that the powder diffraction patterns of the as-synthesized Fe-MoS2 sample are consistent with that of crystalline 2H-MoS2 (JCPDS 37-1492), indicating that Fe-MoS2 and 2H-MoS2 have the same crystal structure;Spherical aberration electron microscope displayed single-atoms of iron were uniformly dispersed on MoS2;EDX and XPS analysis further showed that the single iron atoms exist on the MoS2 structure.The hydrogen evolution performance of Fe-MoS2 was studied by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV).The results showed that the Fe-MoS2 synthesized under the optimal conditions has a hydrogen evolution overpotential of only 101 mV at the current density of 10 mA·cm-2, whereas the hydrogen evolution overpotential of pure MoS2 under the same conditions is 462 mV, its overpotential is reduced by 361 mV. The Tafel slope of pure MoS2 is 433 mV/dec, while that of single-atom Fe-MoS2 is only 64 mV/dec. EDTA and F-ion were used as probe molecules to test the active sites of hydrogen evolution, the results show that the hydrogen evolution overpotential rises rapidly, when EDTA and F ions were added to 1.0 mol/L KOH solution. It is concluded that single atoms of iron are active sites for HER. In addition, studies have shown that the hydrogen evolution mechanism of single-atom Fe-MoS2 follows the Volmer-Heyrovsky mechanism.
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