Water generally exists as liquid state. Actually it could generate hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis, which is called, by scientists, overall water splitting. By this way, hydrogen, as a kind of clean energy, could be obtained with very low cost, if realized.

In the electrolysis process, MoS₂ is used as electrocatalyst with high performance to produce hydrogen, but low performance to produce oxygen.

This time, Chinese researchers developed a totally new method to overcome the limitation of MoS₂ and then make it produce both hydrogen and oxygen efficiently.

In the work, they developed cobalt covalent doping in MoS₂ to induce its bifunctionality of overall water splitting.

The creation of their research is for the first time ever that a covalent doping approach was induced in overall water splitting to bifunctionalize MoS₂ to produce hydrogen and oxygen with high efficiency.

The research, led by Professor ZHANG Haimin and ZHAO Huijun at Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, was recently published in journal Advanced Materials.

(a) SEM and (b) TEM images of Co-MoS₂/BCCF-21; (c) HAADF-STEM) image of a Co-MoS₂/BCCF-21 fiber and corresponding X-ray elemental mapping images; (d) Normalized Co K-edge XANES spectra and (e) Co K-edge k²-weighted EXAFS spectra of Co-MoS₂/BCCF-21, Co foil, Co₃O₄ and CoS; (f) Mo K-edge k²-weighted EXAFS spectra of MoS₂/BCCF and Co-MoS₂/BCCF-21; (g) HER polarization curves and OER polarization curves of Co-MoS₂/BCCF-21 in 1.0 M KOH; (h, i) The Co and Mo K-edge k²-weighted EXAFS spectra of Co-MoS₂/BCCF-21 before and after HER and OER in 1.0 M KOH. (Image by XIONG Qizhong)