Construction of Cobalt Molybdenum Diselenide Three-phase Heterojunctions for Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution in Acid Medium

Molybdenum diselenide and cobalt diselenide have been commonly implemented in electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, there have been few research on the creation of their three-phase heterojunctions and the associated HER process. Herein, we constructed a three-phase heterostructure sample consisting of orthorhombic CoSe2, cubic CoSe2 and MoSe2 and we investigated its HER performance. The sample shows microsphere morphology composed of nanosheets with interfacial interactions between the components. It possesses an overpotential of -136 mV at -10 mA cm(-2) in acid medium, which is superior to that of single component and most two-phase heterostructures. Especially, the overpotential at -200 mA cm(-2) is smaller than that of Pt/C. The excellent performance can be attributed to the d-orbital upshift of the Co active sites due to charge redistribution between the three-phase heterojunction and the optimization of the hydrogen free energy. This work provides inspiration for exploring the application of other multi-component heterojunctions in electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution.

Automated summary

Researchers constructed a three-phase heterostructure sample and investigated its performance in electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution. The sample showed superior performance in acid medium, with lower overpotential compared to single component and most two-phase heterostructures, and even lower than Pt/C. This work provides inspiration for exploring the application of other multi-component heterojunctions in electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution.