Metal

Catalysis

Phase (matter)

Engineering

Electrochemistry

Metallurgy

Materials science

Transition metal

Inorganic chemistry

Chemical engineering

Electrocatalyst

Physical chemistry

Nanotechnology

Tafel equation

Organic chemistry

Doping

Nanomaterials

Chemistry

Electrode

Optoelectronics

Overpotential

Chemical Engineering Journal

In recent years, great attention has been devoted to transition metal-based dichalcogenides (TMDs), in particular to the 1 T-phase enriched TMDs, which possess much higher hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity than the 2H-phase. Currently, how to prepare the stable metallic phase TMDs nanomaterials to achieve an endurable HER is one of the main challenges for practical applications. In this study, we present a reliable and tunable 1 T-phase TMDs-based synthetic strategy to atomically engineer non-metal doping sites onto metallic 1 T-WS2. Benefiting from engineering phosphorus atoms, the optimized electrocatalyst shows great enhancement in the HER. We reveal that P doped WS2 will produce 1 T-phase enriched WS2|P catalyst, which is beneficial to expose more active sites and improve the conductivity of the material. More interestingly, the HER activities of 1 T-WS2|P-5 electrocatalyst outperforms 2H-WS2, demonstrating a low overpotential (ηHER = 125 mV @ 10 mA cm−2), a small Tafel slope (HER = 73.73 mV dec−1), and significant durability under acidic conditions. Simultaneously, the 1 T-WS2|P-5 catalyst also presents an overpotential of 190 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a low Tafel slope of 92.11 mV dec−1 under alkaline conditions. Moreover, the catalyst has excellent catalytic stability under acidic and alkaline conditions. We introduce the first example of 1 T phase enrichment P doped WS2 as a HER electrochemical catalyst, and this work is expected to open a new door for the discovery of other 1 T-phase TMDs as effective catalysts for renewable energy.

1 T-Phase Enriched P doped WS2 nanosphere for highly efficient electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction