Majumdar, Abhisek Karim, Golam Masud Dutta, Pronoy Lee, Heehyeon Deb, Sujit Kumar Sikdar, Anirban Oh, Youngtak Maiti, Uday Narayan 2024-01-12T06:33:06Z 2024-01-12T06:33:06Z 2023-09-08 2023-11 0920-5861 https://pubs.kist.re.kr/handle/201004/79782 Order/dis-order atomic arrangements in crystalline/amorphous structure possess a complementing effect in electro-catalysis as the former one can offer a long-range electronic conducting path, whereas the latter is rich with active sites. However, atomic level interfacing of crystalline and amorphous structures is extremely challenging and thus often end-up with uncontrolled secondary deposition one above another. Here, we are reporting second-scale atomic rearrangement of crystalline oxide nanowire surface into amorphous molybdenum sulfide shell that displayed excellent hydrogen evolution activity. Employing transient heating by microwave-activated graphene filament, surface atoms of molybdenum tungsten oxide (MoWO) nanowire can be arrested in either an amorphous or crystalline state during their sulfidation. Such a nanowire structure consisting of crystalline oxide core-amorphous sulfide shell shows excellent catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and exhibits an overpotential of 136 mV at 10 mA cm？2 in the acid electrolyte, which is much lower than the overpotential of parent oxide nanowire (356 mV) and its fully sulfurized crystalline counterpart (163 mV). As-developed catalyst also shows competitive HER performance with excellent alkaline and neutral electrolytes stability, thereby qualifying it as a pH universal catalyst. A detailed density functional theory calculation reveals oxide core promoted activation of multiple sites of amorphous sulfide phase, which provide key insights of electronic modulation via crystalline/amorphous interfacial structure for HER catalysis. This rapid and highly facile technique can lay the platform for the development of generic crystalline/amorphous core-shell nanostructure and their possible use as cost-effective and efficient catalysts. English Elsevier BV Microwave induced rapid surface amorphization of metal oxide nanowire into sulfides shell for electronically modulated efficient hydrogen evolution catalyst Article 10.1016/j.cattod.2022.11.023 1 Catalysis Today, v.423 Catalysis Today 423 N scie scopus 001063298000001 Chemistry, Applied Chemistry, Physical Engineering, Chemical Chemistry Engineering Article AMORPHOUS MOLYBDENUM SULFIDE ACTIVE EDGE SITES MOS2 DENSITY DESIGN GROWTH SHOCK Amorphous molybdenum sulfide Core-shell heterostructure Hydrogen evolution reaction Density functional theory Microwave