It is extremely prudent
and highly challenging to design a greener
bifunctional electrocatalyst that shows effective electrocatalytic
activity and high stability toward electrochemical water splitting.
As several hundred tons of catalysts are annually deactivated by deposition
of carbon, herein, we came up with a strategy to reutilize spent methane
reforming catalysts that were deactivated by the formation of graphitic
carbon (GC) and carbon nanofibers (CNF). An electrocatalyst was successfully
synthesized by in situ deposition of noble metal-free MoS
2
over spent catalysts via a hydrothermal method that showed exceptional
performance regarding the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the
oxygen evolution reaction (OER). At 25 mA cm
–2
,
phenomenal OER overpotentials (η
25
) of 128 and 154
mV and modest HER overpotentials of 186 and 207 mV were achieved for
MoS
2
@CNF and MoS
2
@GC, respectively. Moreover,
OER Tafel slopes of 41 and 71 mV dec
–1
and HER Tafel
slopes of 99 and 107 mV dec
–1
were obtained for
MoS
2
@CNF and MoS
2
@GC, respectively. Furthermore,
the synthesized catalysts exhibited good long-term durability for
about 18 h at 100 μA cm
–2
with unnoticeable
changes in the linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) curve of the HER after
1000 cycles. The carbon on the spent catalyst increased the conductivity,
while MoS
2
enhanced the electrocatalytic activity; hence,
the synergistic effect of both materials resulted in enhanced electrocatalysts
for overall water splitting. This work of synthesizing enhanced nanostructured
electrocatalysts with minimal usage of inexpensive MoS
2
gives a rationale for engineering potent greener electrocatalysts.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.