One-step synthesis of Ni3S2 nanowires at low temperature as efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

•A facile method has been used to fabricate Ni3S2 nanowires (NWs).•The Ni3S2 NW exhibits a potential ∼199 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and the long-term durability over 30 h at 20 mA cm−2 HER operation.•This facile strategy can readily extend to synthesize other metal sulfide HER catalyst.

Ni3S2 is an emerging cost-effective catalyst for hydrogen generation. However, a large amount of reported Ni3S2 was synthesized via multi-step approaches and few were fabricated based on the one-step strategies. Herein, we report a facile one-step low-temperature synthesis of Ni3S2 nanowires (NWs). In this strategy, a resin containing sulfur element is recommended as a sulfur resource to form Ni3S2 NWs. It presents a plausible explanation on the vapor-solid-solid (VSS) growth mechanism according to the results of this experiment and reported in literature that has been published. The Ni3S2 NW exhibits a potential ∼199 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and the long-term durability over 30 h at 20 mA cm−2 HER operation, better than other reported Ni3S2. More importantly, according to replace transition metal foam as the initial metal, other transition metal sulfide can be readily synthesized via this original approach.

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