Hydrothermal preparation of MoX2 (X = S, Se, Te)/TaS2 hybrid materials on carbon cloth as efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

The prominent features-based two-dimensional (2D) materials have proven themselves as efficient as well as robust electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) owing to their low-cost, abundance and predominant conductivity. In this work, we report the synthesis of series of molybdenum chalcogenide nanostructures MoX2 (X = S, Se, Te), hybridized with TaS2 nanosheets, via a facile hydrothermal method, on self-supported carbon cloth electrode. Used as an electrocatalyst for HER, hybrid phase MoSe2/TaS2/CC electrode with a Mo/Se ratio of 1:1.5 exhibits the best HER performance, which could afford the benchmark current densities of 10 mA/cm2 at the overpotentials of 75 mV with the measured Tafel slope values of 54.7 mV/dec. In addition, the presented molybdenum dichalcogenides in this work are also complimented with robustness as determined from durability and air stability measurements. The unique aspects of these unique hybrids, such as 1T and 2H phases hybridized MoS2 and MoSe2, semimetallic nature 1T′-MoTe2 petal clusters and strong interface interaction between MoX2 (X = S, Se, Te) and conductive TaS2 nanosheets, cause superior HER catalytic performance.