Graphene/surfactant-assisted synthesis of edge-terminated molybdenum disulfide with enlarged interlayer spacing

Abstract The paper presents a facile and effective method to fabricate the new type MoS 2 with expanded interlayer spacing (∼9.70 A) and high-density edges in the presence of graphene oxide (GO) and surfactant. The abundant oxygen-containing groups on GO surfaces can provide nucleation sites through electrostatic interaction with the assistance of surfactant to promote heterogeneous nucleation of MoS 2 on GO surfaces. During reaction, GO was reduced to graphene (rGO) by eliminating the oxygen-containing groups. The nonwettability between MoS 2 and rGO compels the growing MoS 2 nanosheets to stretch out of the rGO surfaces, leading to the high-density edges. Besides, the excess surfactant can insert the interlayer of MoS 2 , causing the enlarged interlayer spacing. The obtained MoS 2 could exhibit improved catalytic activity and the synthetic approach presented here may be extended to grow other transition metal dichalcogenide materials.