C3N4-digested 3D construction of hierarchical metallic phase MoS2 nanostructures

Abstract

Metallic molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has attracted wide attention owing to its high electrical conductivity and promising application in the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, it is difficult to realize the scale-up production of thermodynamically metastable metallic MoS2via conventional approaches. Although some research efforts have been devoted to producing metallic MoS2, it is still a challenging task to simultaneously realize metallic phase control and morphological regulation in MoS2. Here, metallic MoS2 with a controllable hierarchical spherical structure has been achieved via a hydrothermal strategy by using carbon nitride (C3N4) nanospheres as a self-sacrificial template. In the crystal growth, C3N4 played an important role in controlling the morphology of MoS2 by serving as the nucleation and growth site. Meanwhile, the decomposed C3N4 acted as an intercalated material which could further stabilize the metallic phase MoS2. Owing to good electroconductibility and unique structure design, metallic phase MoS2 with a hierarchical flower-like architecture exhibits enhanced electrolytic properties for the HER in an acidic medium.