Organic interlayers boost the activity of MoS2 toward hydrogen evolution by maintaining high 1T/2H phase ratio

1T-MoS2 shows great promise for hydrogen production due to phenomenal performance in catalyzing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from water. However, this phase converts to low-active 2H–MoS2 on superambient heating. A series of MoS2 layered compounds (LCs) with guest organic cations was prepared to reveal the effect of cationic organics on the structure stabilization of 1T-MoS2 and thereby on the catalytic performance of this phase in HER. The results showed that LCs provide significantly higher 1T/2H ratio after heating than non-stabilized 1T phase and some of them exhibit excellent thermal durability in the capacity of HER catalysts. The effect is most pronounced for the organics remaining tightly bound to sulfide sheets in a sulfuric acid electrolyte. Cetyltrimethylammonium and bis(dimethylamino)naphthalene perfectly matched this criterion and provided a long-term maintaining of catalyst activity. The data obtained in this study are hoped to offer new approach for rational design of the efficient non-precious 1T-MoS2-based electrocatalysts for hydrogen production.