Self-healing γ-FeOOH decorated onto MoS2 nanosheets for boosting the hydrogen evolution in alkaline media

Designing and synthesizing efficient inexpensive catalysts with industrial application potential for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media remains a huge challenge. Herein, γ-FeOOH/MoS2/CC catalytic electrode has been designed for HER in alkaline media by a facile hydrothermal-electrodeposition two-step procedure. The heterostructure construction of MoS2 with γ-FeOOH both improved the adsorption-dissociation of water and activated MoS2 basal plane, therefore enhanced the intrinsic activity as well as increased active sites number. Moreover, although the upper most surface γ-FeOOH was proved to be reduced and attenuated the activity during HER, γ-FeOOH was found to possess the self-healing ability under anaerobic conditions. Consequently, γ-FeOOH/MoS2/CC not only exhibited superior HER activity in 1 M KOH, which only required 291 mV overpotential to drive high current density of 300 mA cm−2, but also stabilized the composition and activity well at high current density of 100 mA cm−2 for long term of 20 h.