New Insights into the Surfactant-Assisted Liquid-Phase Exfoliation of Bi2S3 for Electrocatalytic Applications

During water electrolysis, adding an electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is necessary to reduce activation barrier and thus enhance rate. Metal chalcogenide-based 2D nanomaterials have been studied as alternative noble metal electrocatalysts because of their interesting electrocatalytic properties low costs production. However, difficulty in improving catalytic efficiency industrializing synthetic methods become a problem potential application these species electrocatalysis. Liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE) low-cost scalable technique lab- industrial-scale synthesis 2D-material colloidal inks. In this work, we present, best our knowledge, first time systematic study on surfactant-assisted LPE bulk Bi2S3 crystalline powder produce nanosheets (NSs). Different dispersing agents conditions tested order obtain low-dimensional NSs H2O at optimized concentrations. Eventually, colloidally stable layered nano-sized suspensions can be produced with yields up ~12.5%. The obtained proven more active HER than starting material, showing overpotential only 235 mV Tafel slope 125 mV/dec. Our results provide facile top-down method through green approach demonstrate that material good HER.