Fabrication of Co doped MoS2 nanosheets with enlarged interlayer spacing as efficient and pH-Universal bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Exploring inexpensive and active bifunctional electrocatalysts to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water at all pHs is highly desirable. Herein, we report a facile one-step method to prepare vertically aligned Co doped MoS 2 nanosheets with extended interlayer distance on carbon cloth (Co–MoS 2 @CC) for full hydrolysis in both alkaline and acidic medium. Co–MoS 2 @CC exhibits long-term durability with overpotentials of 56.6 mV and 130 mV for hydrogen generation and 242 mV and 201 mV for oxygen production at 10 mA cm −2 in basic and acidic conditions, respectively. Moreover, we achieve low voltages of 1.585 V and 1.55 V in basic and acidic conditions respectively for the overall water splitting. We assume that such excellent property of Co–MoS 2 @CC may be ascribed to the uncovering of more active sites and high porosity resulted from Co doping, which boosts the conductivity and thus reduces MoS 2 hydrogen adsorption free energy in HER, as well as benefits to catalytic active sites in OER. This one-step doping approach opens up new ways to regulate the intrinsic catalytic activity to catalyze total hydrolysis at all PHs.