Novel porous molybdenum tungsten phosphide hybrid nanosheets on carbon cloth for efficient hydrogen evolution

Nanostructural modification and chemical composition tuning are paramount to developing effective non-noble hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts for water splitting. Herein, we report a novel excellent porous molybdenum tungsten phosphide (Mo-W-P) hybrid nanosheet catalyst for hydrogen evolution, which is synthesized via in situ phosphidation of molybdenum tungsten oxide (Mo-W-O) hybrid nanowires grown on carbon cloth. The three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical hybrid electrocatalyst exhibits impressively high electrocatalytic activity with a low overpotential of 138 mV required to achieve a high current density of 100 mA cm(-2) and a small Tafel slope of 52 mV dec(-1) in 0.5 M H2SO4, which are significantly higher than those of single MoP nanosheets and WP2 nanorods. Such an outstanding performance of the Mo-W-P hybrid electrocatalyst is attributed to the 3D conductive scaffolds, porous nanosheet structure, and strong synergistic effect of W and Mo atoms in Mo-W-P, making it a very promising catalyst for hydrogen production. Our findings demonstrate that careful control over the morphology and composition of the electrocatalyst can achieve highly efficient hybrid electrocatalysts.