Investigation of efficient and stable nanostructured Mo based chalcogenides electrocatalysts for Hydrogen evolution Reaction

Abstract

Fossil fuels are the primary energy source to generate power to the world. But depletion newlineof these energy sources and large contribution to global warming due to the emission of CO2 newlineis a subject of deep concern. Therefore, alternative clean energy source is very much required newlineto develop sustainable environment and green society. Hydrogen has been considered as a newlinepromising energy carrier with highest energy density compared to other traditional fossil fuels newlinewith zero emission of CO2, thus provides a clean and green energy. But the process and newlinequantitative production of green hydrogen is still bottleneck for hydrogen economy. newlineElectrocatalytic water splitting/water electrolysis using renewable energy sources such as solar, newlinewind energy has recently gained much attention as one of the eco-friendly routes for green newlinehydrogen production. However, water electrolysis requires highly active electrocatalyst, newlinecapable to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Currently, state of the art electrocatalyst for newlinehydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are Pt and others, well known as noble metals. However, newlinetheir scarcity, poor long-term durability limits their application at commercial level. Therefore, newlinedevelopment of efficient, cost effective, stable, and scalable electrocatalyst for HER application newlineis need of time. newlineThis Ph.D. thesis mainly focuses on developing Molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) as an newlineeconomic, robust, stable, and cost-effective electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction newline(HER) application. The work describes several attempts to improve the HER performance of newlineMoS2 by its nanostructuring and heteroatom doping. Hence, this thesis has been divided into newlinetwo parts. newlineThe thesis first focuses on nanostructuring of MoS2 for improved electrochemical newlinehydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance. In the first part, powder synthesis as well as newlinein-situ deposition of MoS2 film over a conducting substrate have been attempted using simple newlineand economic one-step hydrothermal method. Several characterization techniques have