Activating the MoS₂ Basal Plane by Controllable Fabrication of Pores for an Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Molybdenum disulfide has drawn persistent interest as a promising nonprecious electrocatalyst alternative to Pt for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the MoS₂ catalytic efficiency is still lower than the Pt-based catalysts owing to insufficient active sites with more inert basal planes. Herein, we designed and synthesized porous MoS₂ nanosheets to activate the basal planes by etching away Al in Al-doped MoS₂ . The optimized porous MoS₂ shows a small onset overpotential as low as 136 mV, a large cathode current density of 10 mA cm^-2 at η=201 mV, a low Tafel slope of 62 mV decade^-1 , and a high TOF of 0.29 H₂  s^-1 per active site at η=200 mV. This study opens up new avenues for designing electrocatalysts based on porous MoS₂ or other layered materials with enhanced HER performance.