Engineering the surface wettability of a ceramic carbon electrode for improved hydrogen evolution performance of a molybdenum sulfide electrocatalyst

摘要: In the present work, we explored an economically feasible and environmentally friendly attempt to achieve tunable wettability of ceramic carbon substrates applicable in water splitting devices. It was found that by rationally controlling surface functional groups, with different hydrophilicities, electroactive areas, electrochemical behaviors could be achieved. Particularly, a hydrophilic electrode (CCE) obtained using tetramethoxysilane as modifier, which allowed uniform anchoring amorphous molybdenum sulfide (MoSx) hydrogen evolution electrocatalyst on its through simple chemical vapor deposition method. The optimized CCE/MoSx exhibited promising reaction activity good stability, small onset overpotential (∼250 mV) low Tafel slope (58 mV dec−1). catalyst also showed reasonable stability under acidic conditions. Such performance has been attributed strong electronic coupling between conducting CCE MoSx. This work paves new way for rational design fabrication efficient composite selecting durable high-conductivity substrate collaborative optimization higher performance.