Synthesis of Two-dimensional Hydrophobic Copper-based Nanosheets and Their Application in Catalytic Oxidation of Sulfides

Abstract

Two-dimensional nanomaterials have received extensive attention because of their unique physicochemical properties. However, bottom-up synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) stable nanomaterials still remains great challenge. In this work, a novel 2D metal-organic (Cu-BDT) nanosheet is constructed at room temperature by coordinative self-assembly, namely, using monovalent copper ion as the metal precursor and 1,4-benzenedithiol as organic ligand. As-synthesized Cu-BDT nanosheets are fully characterized by various techniques including powder-diffraction of X-rays (P-XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR), Raman spectra (Raman), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) and contact angle test. The catalytic result verifies that the Cu-BDT nanosheet surfaces possess abundant active sites and good hydrophobicity, which facilitate oxidation of sulfides into sulfoxide compounds.