Preparation of High Concentration Dispersions of Exfoliated MoS 2 with Increased Flake Size

Solvent exfoliation of inorganic layered compounds is likely to be important for a range of applications. However, this method generally gives dispersions of small nanosheets at low concentrations. Here we describe methods, based on sonication of powdered MoS2 in the solvent N-methyl-pyrrolidone, to prepare dispersions with significantly increased lateral nanosheet size and dispersed concentration. We find the concentration to scale linearly with starting MoS2 mass allowing the definition of a yield. This yield can be increased to ∼40% by controlling the sonication time, resulting in concentrations as high as 40 mg/mL. We find the nanosheet size to increase initially with sonication time reaching ∼700 nm (for…

• SF
  Science Foundation Ireland