Designing molybdenum disulfide/nickel silicide@sodalite zeolite structure as a high performance core-shell catalyst for methanol oxidation

The design and synthesis of novel electrode catalysts is an applicable strategy to improve the performance of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). The catalyst is composed of molybdenum disulfide as the shell and nickel silicide-doped sodalite (MoS2/NiSi@SOD) as the core. A series of characterization results indicate that NiSi is highly dispersed in the nanosized SOD cage on the surface of the SOD zeolite at the crystal faces of (011), (102), and (201). A thin conductive protective cover is formed by MoS2 on the surface of the zeolite. By the cyclic voltammetry (CV), the catalyst performs a maximum current density of 46.9 mA cm−2 (1250.1 A gNi−1) with 10 M methanol while no remarkable catalyst poisoning and catalyst deactivation are observed. It is revealed that MoS2/NiSi@SOD under high catalysis activity protects the Ni from the drain in the alkaline electrolyte, leading to a broad application prospect as a noble-metals-free DMFC catalyst.