Recent advances in the electrochemistry of layered post-transition metal chalcogenide nanomaterials for hydrogen evolution reaction

Layered two-dimensional (2D) materials have received tremendous attention due to their unique physical and chemical properties when downsized to single or few layers. Several types of layered materials, especially transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been demonstrated to be good electrode materials due to their interesting physical and chemical properties. Apart from TMDs, post-transition metal chalcogenides (PTMCs) recently have emerged as a family of important semiconducting materials for electrochemical studies. PTMCs are layered materials which are composed of post-transition metals raging from main group IIIA to group VA (Ga, In, Ge, Sn, Sb and Bi) and group VI chalcogen atoms (S, selenium (Se) and tellurium (Te)). Although a large number of literatures have reviewed the electrochemical and electrocatalytic applications of TMDs, less attention has been focused on PTMCs. In this review, we focus our attention on PTMCs with the aim to provide a summary to describe their fundamental electrochemical properties and electrocatalytic activity towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The characteristic chemical compositions and crystal structures of PTMCs are firstly discussed, which are different from TMDs. Then, inherent electrochemistry of PTMCs is discussed to unveil the well-defined redox behaviors of PTMCs, which could potentially affect their efficiency when applied as electrode materials. Following, we focus our attention on electrocatalytic activity of PTMCs towards HER including novel synthetic strategies developed for the optimization of their HER activity. This review ends with the perspectives for the future research direction in the field of PTMC based electrocatalysts. © 2021 Science Press