Activating the MoS2 Basal Plane by Controllable Fabrication of Pores for an Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution Reaction.

Molybdenum disulfide has drawn persistent interest as a promising nonprecious electrocatalyst alternative to Pt for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the MoS2 catalytic efficiency is still lower than the Pt-based catalysts owing to insufficient active sites with more inert basal planes. Herein, we designed and synthesized porous MoS2 nanosheets to activate the basal planes by etching away Al in Al-doped MoS2 . The optimized porous MoS2 shows a small onset overpotential as low as 136 mV, a large cathode current density of 10 mA cm-2 at η=201 mV, a low Tafel slope of 62 mV decade-1 , and a high TOF of 0.29 H2  s-1 per active site at η=200 mV. This study opens up new avenues for designing electrocatalysts based on porous MoS2 or other layered materials with enhanced HER performance.