Interfacial coupling of sea urchin-like (Mo4O11-MoS2-VO2) promoted electron redistributions for significantly boosted hydrogen evolution reaction

Developing efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is of great importance in contemporary water electrolysis technology. Here, a novel hierarchically sea urchin-like electrocatalyst (Mo4O11-MoS2-VO2) is synthesized by hydrothermal deposition and post-annealing strategy. The optimized electrocatalyst behaves as a high active hydrogen evolution electrode in 0.5 mol/L H2SO4. This electrode needs overpotential of only 43 mV to achieve 10 mA/cm2 with a Tafel slope of 37 mV/dec and maintains its catalytic activity for at least 36 h. Better than most previously reported non-noble metal electrocatalysts anchored on carbon cloth. It is worth mentioning that the hierarchical sea urchin-like structure promotes the redistribution of electrons and provides more catalytic active sites. This strategy shows a way for the construction of inexpensive non-noble metal electrocatalysts in the future.