1 T-Phase Enriched P doped WS2 nanosphere for highly efficient electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction

In recent years, great attention has been devoted to transition metal-based dichalcogenides (TMDs), in particular to the 1 T-phase enriched TMDs, which possess much higher hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity than the 2H-phase. Currently, how to prepare the stable metallic phase TMDs nanomaterials to achieve an endurable HER is one of the main challenges for practical applications. In this study, we present a reliable and tunable 1 T-phase TMDs-based synthetic strategy to atomically engineer non-metal doping sites onto metallic 1 T-WS2. Benefiting from engineering phosphorus atoms, the optimized electrocatalyst shows great enhancement in the HER. We reveal that P doped WS2 will produce 1 T-phase enriched WS2|P catalyst, which is beneficial to expose more active sites and improve the conductivity of the material. More interestingly, the HER activities of 1 T-WS2|P-5 electrocatalyst outperforms 2H-WS2, demonstrating a low overpotential (ηHER = 125 mV @ 10 mA cm−2), a small Tafel slope (HER = 73.73 mV dec−1), and significant durability under acidic conditions. Simultaneously, the 1 T-WS2|P-5 catalyst also presents an overpotential of 190 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a low Tafel slope of 92.11 mV dec−1 under alkaline conditions. Moreover, the catalyst has excellent catalytic stability under acidic and alkaline conditions. We introduce the first example of 1 T phase enrichment P doped WS2 as a HER electrochemical catalyst, and this work is expected to open a new door for the discovery of other 1 T-phase TMDs as effective catalysts for renewable energy.