Flexible tungsten disulfide superstructure engineering for efficient alkaline hydrogen evolution in anion exchange membrane water electrolysers
Open accessAbstract
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 WS 2 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 WS 2 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.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A superstructure of nanowires composed of nanosheets perpendicular to the axis endows the electrode with superhydrophobicity and excellent catalytic activity and ensures stability under high current density and external force damage.
“Unlike Yu’s parallel-axis nanosheets, Xie et al. [167] prepared nanowires composed of nanosheets perpendicular to the axis (Fig. 15c). This superstructure not only endows the electrode with superhydrophobicity and excellent catalytic activity, but also ensures its stability even under high current density and external force damage.”
From Advances in Surface/Interface Engineering of Under-Water Superaerophobic Electrodes for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction by Manipulating of Bubbles (2026) · cites this paper as [167]
The Results section on mass transfer behavior says the WS2 superstructure electrode is superhydrophilic, not superhydrophobic: electrolyte droplets reach a near-zero contact angle within 0.5 seconds. Other Results passages support its catalytic activity, durability at high current density, and recovery after applied mechanical force, but the claimed surface property is the opposite of what the paper reports. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.92)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 86 · Cited by 109
- Authors
- Xie, L., Wang, L., Liu, X., Chen, J., Wen, X., Zhao, W., Liu, S., & Zhao, Q.
- Affiliations
- Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (CN)
- Qingdao University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Longlu
- Liu, Shujuan
- Zhao, Qiang
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-07-08
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 5702-5702
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11231348
- OpenAlex
- W4400429700
- Cited by
- 109
- References
- 86
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 67 · 2024: 17
- FWCI
- 7.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (61825503)
- Government of Jiangsu Province (BK20231514)
- Fuzhou University
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Fuel Cells and Related Materials
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Keywords
- tungsten disulfide, alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction, anion exchange membrane water electrolysis, non-precious metal electrocatalysts, van der Waals interactions, gas-liquid mass transfer, catalyst stability, hydrogen production
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
