Novel three-dimensional flower-like porous Al2O3 nanosheets anchoring NiS2 nanoparticles for high-efficiency hydrogen evolution

In this contribution, we report unique flower-like porous gamma-Al2O3 nanosheets anchoring uniform NiS2 nanoparticles, which are firstly fabricated through a common hydrothermal process and two-step calcinations. Different from the general strategy, the flower-like NiS2@Al2O3 are directly prepared by the precursor of Ni2Al(CO3)(2)(OH)(3) nanosheets rather than adding Al2O3 coating later. This novel nano architecture can efficiently disperse and confine the active nanoparticles, which can not only offer large specific surface area, but also hinder aggregation and peeling off from the substrates, thus to demonstrate superior HER activities, especially the long-time stability. In this work, the as-synthesized composite exhibits an onset potential of -126 mV and excellent durability of 3% decrease in potential at constant current of 10 mA/cm(2) for 48 h. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.