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Flexoelectricity enhanced water splitting and hydrogen evolution reaction on grain boundaries of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides

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Abstract

Our extensive first-principles calculations reveal that the chemical activities of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) MX2 (M = Mo or W, and X = Te, Se, or S) for water splitting and hydrogen evolution are modified and promoted on their grain boundaries (GBs) when in-plane tensile loadings are applied. Compared with monolayer TMDs without GBs, the flexoelectricity induced by nonuniform deformation and strain gradient significantly enhances the charge polarizations of X and M atoms at the GB sites of monolayer TMDs, which facilitates the dissociation of water molecules on the GB sites and reduces the reaction barrier of hydrogen evolution reaction. The energy barriers of splitting water molecules and hydrogen adsorption free energies on the GB sites decrease with increasing the flexoelectric effect. These results highlight an attractive way of utilizing the flexoelectric effect of GB-containing TMDs to improve their surface catalytic capability for hydrogen generation.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11972186, 11890674, and 51921003), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. NE2019001) of China, and a Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures and MOE Key Laboratory for Intelligent Nano Materials and Devices, College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Mingjie Pu, Dong Wang, Zhuhua Zhang, Yufeng Guo & Wanlin Guo

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  1. Mingjie Pu
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  2. Dong Wang
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  3. Zhuhua Zhang
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  4. Yufeng Guo
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Correspondence to Yufeng Guo or Wanlin Guo.

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Pu, M., Wang, D., Zhang, Z. et al. Flexoelectricity enhanced water splitting and hydrogen evolution reaction on grain boundaries of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides. Nano Res. 15, 978–984 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3584-8

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