Growing Biomorphic Transition Metal Dichalcogenides and Their Alloys Toward High Permeable Membranes and Efficient Electrocatalysts Applications

Abstract

3D architecratured transition metal dichalcogenides constructed by atomically thin layers are appealing building blocks in various applications, such as catalysts, energy storage, conversions, sensors, and so on. However, the direct growth of 3D transition metal dichalcogenides architectures with high crystal quality and well‐controlled size/thickness remains a huge challenge. Herein, we report a facile, highly‐repeatable, and versatile chemical vapor deposition strategy, for the mass production of high‐quality 3D‐architecratured transition metal dichalcogenides (e.g., MoS2, WS2, and ReS2) and their alloys (e.g., WxMo(1–x)S2 and RexMo(1–x)S2) nanosheets on naturally abundant and low‐cost diatomite templates. Particularly, the purified transition metal dichalcogenides products exhibit unique and designable 3D biomorphic hierarchical microstructures, controllable layer thicknesses, tailorable chemical compositions, and good crystallinities. The weak interlayer interactions endow them with good dispersity in solutions to form stable additive‐free inks for solution‐processing‐based applications, for example, high‐permeable and high‐stable separation membranes for water purification, and efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions. This work paves ways for the low‐cost, mass production of versatile transition metal dichalcogenides powder‐like materials with designable structures and properties, toward energy/environmental‐related applications and beyond.

Chemical vapor deposition growth of graphene and other nanomaterials with 3D architectures towards electrocatalysis and secondary battery-related applications

“…Recently, Zhu et al designed a scalable low-pressure CVD (LPCVD) method to synthesize various high-quality TMDCs (e.g., MoS 2 , WS 2 , ReS 2 ) powders with hierarchical structures on naturally abundant and low-cost biomass diatomite substrates at ∼675 °C for 30 min. 75 The open valve-like cylindrical diatomite, with multiple pores and rough surfaces, was first immersed in a salt solution containing transition metals and then dehydrated at ∼150 °C to uniformly load solid metal precursors onto diatomite substrates. After the wet etching process, free-standing 3D TMDCs nanosheets that exactly replicated the hierarchical structures of diatomite templates were achieved (Fig.…”

Chemical Vapor Deposition Syntheses of Wafer‐Scale 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Films toward Next‐Generation Integrated Circuits Related Applications

“…In summary, conversion of pre‐coated solution‐based precursor films (e.g., (NH 4 ) 2 MoS 4 , Na 2 MoO 4 , Na 2 WO 4 , (NH 4 ) 2 MoO 4 ) into MX 2 layers via thermal CVD processes has been developed as a portable method for preparing wafer‐scale ultrathin MX 2 films. Various planar substrates (e.g., sapphire, mica, quartz, Si 3 N 4 ) or structured substrates (e.g., optical fiber, [ 43 ] diatomite [ 44 ] ) have been selected as the growth templates, by virtue of the liquid state of metal precursors. The thickness of derived MX 2 film can be finely controlled by altering the concentration of precoated soluble precursors.…”