Layered tungsten-based composites and their pseudocapacitive and electrocatalytic performance

Ola, Oluwafunmilola; Thummavichai, Kunyapat; Chen, Yu; Wang, Nannan; Niu, Qijian; Wang, Jiaao; Sun, Shibin; Zhu, Yanqiu

Abstract

With the rapid development of heterostructured electrocatalysts, the potential application of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD)-based composites for electrocatalysis have attracted intense attraction owing to their unique optical, electronic, and mechanical properties. Herein, a facile solvothermal method to obtain heterostructured composites consisting of TMD (WS2) and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is reported. DFT calculation results demonstrates that the interface interaction between g-C3N4 and WS2 optimizes the electronic structure of composite materials and activates the active sites. The WS2-g-C3N4 composites with surface sulfur and nitrogen vacancies exhibit high specific capacitance of 1156 F g−1 and excellent cycling stability with no capacitance loss over 2000 charge-discharge cycles, demonstrating huge potential in applications for pseudocapacitive energy storage. In addition, WS2-g-C3N4 composites can attain excellent hydrogen production activity to reach a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at an overpotential of −0.170 V (vs. RHE) and Tafel slope of 59 mV dec−1. This work provides an effective way for the synthesis of heterostructured electrocatalysts with efficient activity for energy conversion and storage.

Citation

Ola, O., Thummavichai, K., Chen, Y., Wang, N., Niu, Q., Wang, J., Sun, S., & Zhu, Y. (2022). Layered tungsten-based composites and their pseudocapacitive and electrocatalytic performance. Materials Chemistry Frontiers, 6(6), 737-747. https://doi.org/10.1039/D1QM00678A

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 26, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 3, 2022
• Publication Date: Mar 21, 2022
• Deposit Date: Feb 3, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 4, 2023
• Journal: Materials Chemistry Frontiers
• Electronic ISSN: 2052-1537
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 737-747
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1QM00678A
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7376122
• Publisher URL: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2022/QM/D1QM00678A