Hydrogen
is attractive as a clean fuel as it can be produced
directly
from water and electricity (electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction,
one of the half-cell reactions in water electrolyzers) and creates
the same products (water and electricity) when utilized in a fuel
cell. Electrocatalysts are often used to accelerate the kinetics of
these reactions, which led to a bloom in the field of electrocatalyst
research to search for an efficient, stable, and cost-effective material.
Hybrid organic–inorganic 2D electrocatalysts are presented
in the current studies, which were prepared by combining two different
class of 2D-layered materials: poly(benzoquinone-pyrrole) polymer
(BQ-Py polymer) as the organic counterpart and MoS2 as
the inorganic counterpart. The hybrid composite catalysts (named BQ-Py-MoS2_NS_US and BQ-Py-MoS2_hyd) exhibit efficient HER
activities with high durability in both acidic (aqueous 0.5 M H2SO4) and simulated seawater (3.5 wt % of aqueous
NaCl) solutions. The studies also reveal some kinetic parameters for
electrochemical HER, where it is observed that only 100 mV of extra
overpotential is required for the hydrothermally formed hybrid composite
to achieve 10 mA cm–2 of current density as compared
to the state-of-the-art HER catalyst (40 wt % Pt–C). This opens
up an avenue to develop organic–inorganic hybrid composite
catalysts for various electrochemical reactions.