title: Hot electron of Au nanorods activates the electrocatalysis of hydrogen evolution on MoS2 nanosheets.
abstract: Efficient water splitting through electrocatalysis holds great promise for producing hydrogen fuel in modern energy devices. Its real application however suffers from sluggish reaction kinetics due to the lack of high-performance catalysts except noble metals such as platinum. Herein, we report an active system of plasmonic-metal Au nanorods/molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets hybrids for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The plasmonic Au-MoS2 hybrids dramatically improve the HER, leading to a ∼3-fold increase of current under excitation of Au localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). A turnover of 8.76 s(-1) at 300 mV overpotential is measured under LSPR excitation, which by far exceeds the activity of MoS2 catalysts reported recently. The HER enhancement can be largely attributed to the increase of carrier density in MoS2 induced by the injection of hot electrons of Au nanorods. We demonstrate that the synergistic effect of the hole scavengers can further facilitate electron-hole separation, resulting in a decrease of the overpotential of HER at MoS2 to ∼120 mV. This study highlights how metal LSPR activates the HER and promises novel opportunities for enhancing intrinsic activities of semiconducting materials.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Jiong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Ting-Ting
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Zhai
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Wen-Jing
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Bao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Jing-Juan
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Xing-Hua
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Hong-Yuan
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Chen