Flexible tungsten disulfide superstructure engineering for efficient alkaline hydrogen evolution in anion exchange membrane water electrolysers

Anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis employing non-precious metal electrocatalysts is a promising strategy for achieving sustainable hydrogen production. However, it still suffers from many challenges, including sluggish alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) kinetics, insufficient activity and limited lifetime of non-precious metal electrocatalysts for ampere-level-current-density alkaline HER. Here, we report an efficient alkaline HER strategy at industrial-level current density wherein a flexible WS2 superstructure is designed to serve as the cathode catalyst for AEM water electrolysis. The superstructure features bond-free van der Waals interaction among the low Young’s modulus nanosheets to ensure excellent mechanical flexibility, as well as a stepped edge defect structure of nanosheets to realize high catalytic activity and a favorable reaction interface micro-environment. The unique flexible WS2 superstructure can effectively withstand the impact of high-density gas-liquid exchanges and facilitate mass transfer, endowing excellent long-term durability under industrial-scale current density. An AEM electrolyser containing this catalyst at the cathode exhibits a cell voltage of 1.70 V to deliver a constant catalytic current density of 1 A cm−2 over 1000 h with a negligible decay rate of 9.67 μV h−1.