Abstract

Facile design of low‐cost and highly active catalysts from earth‐abundant elements is favorable for the industrial application of water splitting. Here, a simple strategy to synthesize an ultrathin molybdenum disulfide/nitrogen‐doped reduced graphene oxide (MoS 2 /N‐RGO‐180) nanocomposite with the enlarged interlayer spacing of 9.5 Å by a one‐step hydrothermal method is reported. The synergistic effects between the layered MoS 2 nanosheets and N‐doped RGO films contribute to the high activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). MoS 2 /N‐RGO‐180 exhibits the excellent catalytic activity with a low onset potential of −5 mV versus reversible hydrogen elelctrode (RHE), a small Tafel slope of 41.3 mV dec −1 , a high exchange current density of 7.4 × 10 −4 A cm −2 , and good stability over 5 000 cycles under acidic conditions. The HER performance of MoS 2 /N‐RGO‐180 nanocomposite is superior to the most reported MoS 2 ‐based catalysts, especially its onset potential and exchange current density. In this work, a novel and simple method to the preparation of low‐cost MoS 2 ‐based electrocatalysts with the extraordinary HER performance is presented.