Synthesis and characterization of porous carbon-MoS2 nanohybrid materials: electrocatalytic performance towards selected biomolecules.

Joanna Dolinska,Frank Marken,Wojciech Lisowski,Michalina Iwan,Marcin Opallo,Ernst J R Sudholter,Witold Adamkiewicz,Barbara Palys,Liza Rassaei,Mehdi Estili,Arunraj Chidambaram

doi:10.1039/c5tb02175h

Abstract

Porous carbon nanohybrids are promising materials as high-performance electrodes for both sensing and energy conversion applications. This is mainly due to their high specific surface area and specific physicochemical properties. Here, new porous nanohybrid materials are developed based on exfoliated MoS2 nanopetals and either negatively charged phenylsulfonated carbon nanoparticles or positively charged sulfonamide functionalized carbon nanoparticles. MoS2 nanopetals not only act as a scaffold for carbon nanoparticles to form 3D porous hierarchical architectures but also result in well-separated electrochemical signals for different compounds. The characteristics of the new carbon nanohybrid materials are studied by dynamic light scattering, zeta potential analysis, high resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy and electrochemistry. The new hybrid materials show superior charge transport capability and electrocatalytic activity toward selected biologically relevant compounds compared to earlier reports on porous carbon electrodes.

Highlights

Porous carbon nanohybrids are promising materials as high-performance electrodes for both sensing and energy conversion applications
Surface characterization of all materials reported in this study such as MoS2 precipitate and MoS2 obtained from supernatant solution as well as porous carbon–MoS2 nanohybrids was carried out by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and EDX analysis
The sonication step deleteriously affects the van der Waals interaction between the layers of bulk MoS2 to yield dimensionally reduced MoS2 nanopetals, whereas the centrifugation step enables the separation of the nanosheet dispersion into thin layers

Summary

Introduction

Chemical properties stems from the need for more robust materials which benefit from the best of each component.[11,12,13,14]. Other MoS2 hybrids with reduced graphene oxide and other components were recently prepared and applied for the same purpose.[37,38] The MoS2 nanopetals decorated with carbon nanoparticles were characterised by XPS, TEM, SEM, IR spectroscopy, DLS, and zeta potential analysis. Surface characterization of all materials reported in this study such as MoS2 precipitate and MoS2 obtained from supernatant solution as well as porous carbon–MoS2 nanohybrids was carried out by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and EDX analysis. For these measurements, all samples were deposited on indium tin oxide glass substrate (ITO).

Procedures

Results and discussion

Conclusion