Rational construction of Ni/V-MoO2 heterostructured nanohybrids as high-performanced electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract The development of efficient and non-precious electrocatalysts to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water is critical to meeting the world's growing energy demand and overcoming the challenges of global warming. In this work, we have successfully synthesized a new heterostructured material in form of Ni nanoparticles modified V doped MoO2 supported by Ni foam (Ni/V-MoO2/NF) and applied it as an excellent HER electrocatalyst under alkaline conditions. The introduction of V can tune the morphology of material to be further regular, which is conducive to the exposure of active sites and mass transport. Meanwhile, the V doping and its resulting abundant oxygen vacancies can modulate the electronic structure and boost the conductivity, which benefits the improvement of electrocatalytic HER performance. Thus, compared with the non-V-doped contrast sample, the as-prepared Ni/V-MoO2/ NF has shown excellent and stable HER activity with a low overpotential of 13.1 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm−2 and Tafel slope of 34.8 mV dec−1. This work may provide positive suggestion for the design of high-performanced V-doped heterostructured electrocatalysts for various sustainable energy applications.