A facile lyophilization synthesis of MoS2 QDs@graphene as a highly active electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

The development of robust, active and nonprecious electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction is quite urgent but still challenging. Here MoS2 QDs@Graphene is prepared via a facile lyophilization method, which leads to a better dispersion of MoS2 QDs on the graphene and optimizes the electronic mobility between the MoS2 layers. Impressively, the electrocatalyst MoS2 QDs@Graphene demonstrates the remarkable activity for HER in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution, with a current density of 10 mA cm(-2) at a low overpotential of 140 mV and strong stability in acid condition. The achieved excellent performance is attributed to its morphology with large amount of active sites fabricated by the lyophilization method. This new method opens new pathway for the fabrication of non-precious metal electrocatalysts achieving high activity. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.