Numerous efforts in improving the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance of transition metal dichalcogenides mostly focus on active sites exposing, vacancy engineering, and phase engineering. However, little room is left for improvement in these approaches. It should be noted that efficient electron transfer also plays a crucial role in catalytic activity. In this work, by employment of an external vertical magnetic field, ferromagnetic bowl-like MoS 2 flakes can afford electrons transmitting easily from a glassy carbon electrode to active sites to drive HER, and thus perform magnetic HER enhancement. The ferromagnetic bowl-like MoS 2 flakes with an external vertical magnetic field can provide a roughly doubled current density compared to that without an external vertical magnetic field at a constant overpotential of −150 mV. Our work may provide a new pathway to break the bottleneck for further improvement of HER performance and also paves the way to utilize the magnetic enhancement in widely catalytic application.

The copper silver selenide has two phases: the low-temperature semimetal phase (α-CuAgSe) and high-temperature phonon-glass superionic phase (β-CuAgSe). In this work, the electric transport and thermoelectric properties of the two phases are investigated. It is revealed that the β-CuAgSe is a p-type semiconductor and exhibits low thermal conductivity while the α-CuAgSe shows metallic conduction with dominant n-type carriers and low electrical resistivity. The thermoelectric figure of merit zT of the polycrystalline β-CuAgSe at 623 K is ~0.95, suggesting that superionic CuAgSe can be a promising thermoelectric candidate in the intermediate temperature range.

A MoS2 moiré superlattice with a twisted angle of θ ≈ 7.3° via a facile method instead of a conventional mechanical stacking method is successfully fabricated. With reduced interlayer potential barriers demonstrated by first-principles calculations and ultralow frequency Raman spectra, electrons can transfer easily from a conductive substrate to active sites in this MoS2 superlattice, thus leading to good hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activities. By using an electrochemical microcell technique, improved catalytic performance in the MoS2 moiré superlattice is validated, with a current density of −10 mA/cm2 at an overpotential of −153 mV and a Tafel slope of 73 mV/dec. A strategy to boost the electrocatalytic performance by reducing the interlayer potential barriers is successfully achieved by employing a MoS2 moiré superlattice. The work paves a new pathway to break the bottleneck for further improvement of HER performance and also opens interesting possibilities for implementing moiré superlattices in catalysis, energy storage, and 2D functional devices.

A good thermoelectric material usually has a high power factor and low thermal conductivity for high figure of merit (ZT), and is also environmentally friendly and economical.