C₃N₄-digested 3D construction of hierarchical metallic phase MoS₂ nanostructures

Metallic molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) has attracted wide attention owing to its high electrical conductivity and promising application in the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, it is difficult to realize the scale-up production of thermodynamically metastable metallic MoS₂via conventional approaches. Although some research efforts have been devoted to producing metallic MoS₂, it is still a challenging task to simultaneously realize metallic phase control and morphological regulation in MoS₂. Here, metallic MoS₂ with a controllable hierarchical spherical structure has been achieved via a hydrothermal strategy by using carbon nitride (C₃N₄) nanospheres as a self-sacrificial template. In the crystal growth, C₃N₄ played an important role in controlling the morphology of MoS₂ by serving as the nucleation and growth site. Meanwhile, the decomposed C₃N₄ acted as an intercalated material which could further stabilize the metallic phase MoS₂. Owing to good electroconductibility and unique structure design, metallic phase MoS₂ with a hierarchical flower-like architecture exhibits enhanced electrolytic properties for the HER in an acidic medium.