In situ growth of different numbers of gold nanoparticles on MoS₂ with enhanced electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction

Producing hydrogen through a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by splitting water at the suitable overpotential is a great alternative to solving the problems of environmental pollution and the energy crisis. Molybdenum sulfide (MoS₂) has attracted extensive attention as one of the most promising catalytic materials for HER. In this work, we design a facile method to in situ grow gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on MoS₂. Different numbers of AuNPs with MoS₂ are used to find the best catalytic activity. Due to the larger active surface area and higher conductivity of the Au-MoS₂ composites, all the Au-MoS₂ composites exhibit more enhanced HER electroactivity than pure MoS₂. In brief, the new material architecture exhibits optimized HER activity with a low onset overpotential of 0.12 V, low Tafel slope of 0.163 V·dec^-1, and an excellent stability in acidic solution.