Molybdenum Disulfide Modified by Laser Irradiation for Catalyzing Hydrogen Evolution

As a low-cost and promising electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) possesses both an inert basal plane and catalytically active edges. As a result, considerable efforts have been made to activate the MoS 2 basal plane for improving the HER activity. Herein, we first employed laser ablation in liquid to create plentiful sulfur (S)-vacancies in the basal plane of 2H-MoS 2 nanosheets under ambient conditions. The experimental measurements and theoretical calculations prove that S vacancies in the basal plane can serve as the additional active sites and optimize the free energy change for hydrogen adsorption (ΔG H∗ ) at the same time. As a result, in comparison with pristine MoS 2 (P-MoS 2 ), laser treated MoS 2 (L-MoS 2 ) realizes a significant improvement in the HER activity. Our work represents a facile method to enhance the catalytic performance of 2H-MoS 2 nanosheets and may help to guide the synthesis of other efficient two-dimensional metal chalcogenide catalysts.