Cobalt phosphide integrated manganese-doped metallic 1T-vanadium disulfide: Unveiling a 2D-2D tangled 3D heterostructure for robust water splitting

The rational integration of a 2D layered transition metal sulfide and phosphide in a single heterostructure can bring a breakthrough to produce hydrogen through controlled manipulation of electronic structure. Here, we report a novel design of a hierarchical 2D−2D tangled 3D heterostructure of manganese-doped 1T vanadium disulfide (1T−Mn−VS₂), assembled with cobalt phosphide (Co₂P), at the flexible carbon cloth as 1T−Mn−VS₂@Co₂P@CC. The HER active 1T−Mn−VS₂ bearing catalytically active edge sites, with numbers of basal planes and OER active Co₂P, create synergism and hastening rection kinetics towards bifunctional water splitting. The heterostructure display significantly low over potential of 98 and 250 mV for HER and OER at 10 mA cm⁻². The 1T−Mn−VS₂@Co₂P@CC (+,-) electrochemical cell needs 1.50 V to reach a current density of 10 mAcm⁻². The implication of defect engineering along with interface modeling validated by DFT study, induces the regulation of electronic structure for fast redistribution of local charges/electron transfer.