Con?ning Pd Nanoparticles and Atomically Dispersed Pd into Defective MoO3 Nanosheet for Enhancing Electro- and Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Performances 

Jin Li,?,§ Yong Cheng,?,§ Jianan Zhang,*,? Jianwei Fu,? Wenfu Yan,? and Qun Xu?

Interface engineering of two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal composites for activating plane and edge sites is a signi?cant yet step challenging in boosting their performance for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, two-dimensional (2D) MoO3 with petal-shaped nanosheets con?ning Pd nanoparticles (Pd@MoO3 heterostructure) was prepared via an e?cient solvothermal and subsequently hydrogen reduction processes. The atomically dispersed Pdsubstituted sites in the interface of Pd nanoparticles and 2D MoO3 lattices signi?cantly play an important role in enhancing the electrocatalytic and photocatalytic performances of the Pd@MoO3 heterostructure. As a result, the Pd@MoO3 heterostructure exhibits a high HER catalytic activity with an overpotential (η) of 71 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm?2 and an extremely low Tafel slope of 42.8 mV dec?1 in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution. Furthermore, the photoresponse of the Pd@MoO3 heterostructure is about 3 times higher than that of the MoO3 nanosheets. This work highlighted a strategy of interface engineering for highly e?cient cost-e?ective catalyst for hydrogen evolution by electric and solar energy conversion. 

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsami.9b07469