Polymer-Brush-Templated Three-Dimensional Molybdenum Sulfide Catalyst for Hydrogen Evolution
By Stern, Lucas-Alexandre; Mocny, Piotr; Vrubel, Heron; Bilgic, Tugba; Klok, Harm-Anton; Hu, Xile
Published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
2018
Abstract
Earth-abundant hydrogen evolution catalysts are essential for high-efficiency solar-driven water splitting. Although a significant amount of studies have been dedicated to the development of new catalytic materials, the microscopic assembly of these materials has not been widely investigated. Here, we describe an approach to control the three-dimensional (3D) assembly of amorphous molybdenum sulfide using polymer brushes as a template. To this end, poly(dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) brushes were grown from highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. These cationic polymer films bind anionic MoS42