Exfoliated Transition Metal Dichalcogenide-Based Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has proved to be a hard-to-overlook impediment for the development of water splitting devices, metal-air batteries, or photo-electrochemical cells, to name but a few. Electro- and photo-electrocatalysts, designed using inexpensive materials, that demand low overpotential values to smoothly drive OER in either electrolyzer devices or proton-exchange membrane cells, as well as withstand harsh conditions and repetitive cycling, are fervently desired by the industry. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), namely MoS2, WS2, MoSe2 and WSe2 as the main representatives, especially when engineered via exfoliation methods, have been highlighted as modular scaffolds for electrocatalytic applications, owed to their ability to have their intrinsic characteristics fine-tuned. In this review, the goal is to highlight the role of exfoliation, as a means of ability engineering, by presenting significant works where these TMDs constitute the core part for OER-catalyzing nanohybrid systems.