Catalytically enhanced thin and uniform TaS₂ nanosheets for hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Though the transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) were proven to have a better performance on the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the bulk production of active TMD materials remains a challenging work. This report overcomes those barriers by showing a simple procedure to synthesize TaS₂ nanosheets through modifying the arc discharge process. The usage of chloride as the transporting agent reduces the growth period of the formed TaS₂ with active edge sites. TaS₂ is found to have a uniform thickness (4 nm) with high crystallinity and adopt a 2H polytype (double-layered hexagonal) structure. The as-synthesized TaS₂ has superior activity for HER with the potential of 280 mV.

Keywords

hydrogen evolution reaction / TaS ₂ nanosheets / arc disharge / active edge sites

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