Abstract
A highly effective 1T-Co4S3-WS2 ultrathin nanosheet arrays on carbon cloth is successfully constructed by a facile in-situ growth and vulcanization strategies. Electrochemical studies illustrated that the designed bifunctional catalyst exhibited excellent OER/HER catalytic, long-term stability, as well as the simulated two electrode system.
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•1 T-Co4S3-WS2/CC is constructed by in-situ growth and vulcanization strategies.•The catalyst displays a remarkable OER/HER activity of 278 mV/75 mV@10 mA cm−2.•The bifunctional catalyst only requires 1.59 V cell voltage to reach 10 mA cm−2 in overall water splitting.•The synergy between Co4S3 and 1 T-WS2 contributes to improving water splitting kinetics.
Developing the earth-abundant transition metal-based bifunctional electrocatalysts for water splitting and renewable energy devices has attracted much attention. Herein, we report a 1 T-WS2 in ultrathin nanosheet arrays grafted with Co4S3 on conductive carbon cloth (CC) (1 T-Co4S3-WS2/CC) through a feasible in-situ growth and vulcanization. The optimized 1 T-Co4S3-WS2/CC catalyst exhibits an impressive electrocatalytic activity and remarkable stability with the oxygen/hydrogen evolution reaction (OER/HER: 278/75 mV for 10 mA cm−2). It also showed the small Tafel slope values of 61.7 and 58.4 mV dec−1, respectively. Additionally, the 1 T-Co4S3-WS2/CC(−/+) achieved 1.59 V@10 mA cm−2 in alkaline media superior to the most previously reported non-precious metal electrocatalysts. The outstanding performance could be attributed to the synergy between heterostructures of Co4S3 and 1 T-WS2 modifying the electronic structure to accelerate water splitting kinetics. Thus, this work presents a rational design of scalable, high-efficiency, stable water splitting electrocatalysts based on WS2.