Morphology and Stoichiometry Dependent Electrocatalytic Activity of Cu2ZnSnS4 for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) with Addition of Nonionic Surfactants

In this work, hierarchical Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 electrocatalysts with different morphologies and stoichiometries were synthesized via the hydrothermal method and their electrocatalytic performances in hydrogen evolution reaction were evaluated. The morphologies of Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 electrocatalysts were modulated by adjusting the content of surfactants during the hydrothermal process. The stoichiometries of as-prepared Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 were found to be Cu 2 Zn 0.8 Sn 0.7 S 2.9 , Cu 2 Zn 0.7 Sn 1.2 S 4.7 and Cu 2 Zn 0.5 Sn 0.7 S 3.2 for the absence of surfactant and the addition of polyethylene glycol-(400) (PEG 400) and octylphenol polyoxyethyleneether-10 (OP 10) respectively. The Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 synthesized with the addition of PEG 400 displayed superior electrocatalytic activity in acid medium with an overpotential of 295 mV obtained at 10 mA cm − 2 and a Tafel slope of 133 mV dec − 1 . This work reveals that the stoichiometry and microstructure of Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 are critically important for its electrocatalytic activity while have less impact on the electrocatalytic durability, and provides useful information to explore the utilization of chalcogenides as the attractive electrocatalysts.