Synthesis and fabrication of nanostructured MoS2/PANI nanocomposites by microwave assisted method for electrochemical applications

Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are two dimensional nanomaterials made up of a monolayer of transition metal atoms sandwiched (X-M-X) between two layers of chalcogen atoms in a hexagonal lattice. Molybdenum di sulfide (MoS2) have attracted much attention among the TMDCs family and is a suitable electrode material for supercapacitors. It has remarkable physical and chemical properties such as large surface area, sheet like structure, superior capability and lower rates of cyclic induced degradation. However, MoS2 suffers from lower electronic conductivity that limits its energy storage. Hence the conducting polymer, polyaniline is doped with the MoS2 to overcome the deficiencies and to enhance the electrochemical performance. A novel microwave assisted method is implemented to synthesize MoS2/PANI nanocomposites for the strategy of supercapacitors. The microwave assisted processing of MoS2/PANI nanocomposites provides several advantages than the conventional heating method such as tuning the physiochemical properties as reduction of impurity, mono dispersivity in the morphology that results in enhancing the electrochemical performance. The phase purity, homogeneity, and functional groups present in the MoS2/PANI nanocomposites are synthesized and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron microscope (FESEM), High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope (HR-TEM), Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV–Visible (UV–Vis) absorption spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The optimized MoS2 /PANI nanosheets exhibits a high specific capacitance of 348 F/g at 0.5 A/g and MoS2/PANI nanocomposites retains 89.21% of its initial specific capacitance even after 2000 cycles. Hence the strategy of microwave assisted synthesis of MoS2/PANI nanocomposites improve the electrochemical performance of two dimensional MoS2 based electrode materials for energy storage.