Organic Dispersion of Mo3Se3- Single-Chain Atomic Crystals Using Surface Modification Methods

Seungbae Oh; Sudong Chae; Minho Kwon; Jungyoon Ahn; Chaeheon Woo; Kyung Hwan Choi; Jiho Jeon; Xue Dong; Tae Yeong Kim; Ghulam Asghar; Hanyoung Kim; Hyun-Jong Paik; Hak Ki Yu; Jae-Young Choi

doi:10.1021/acsnano.2c00965

Organic Dispersion of Mo₃Se₃^- Single-Chain Atomic Crystals Using Surface Modification Methods

ACS Nano. 2022 May 24;16(5):8022-8029. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.2c00965. Epub 2022 May 5.

Authors

Seungbae Oh¹, Sudong Chae¹, Minho Kwon², Jungyoon Ahn¹, Chaeheon Woo¹, Kyung Hwan Choi³, Jiho Jeon³, Xue Dong³, Tae Yeong Kim¹, Ghulam Asghar³, Hanyoung Kim², Hyun-Jong Paik², Hak Ki Yu⁴, Jae-Young Choi^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Advanced Materials Science & Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan 46241, Republic of Korea.
³ SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering & Department of Energy Systems Research, Ajou University, Suwon 16499, Republic of Korea.

PMID: 35511942
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.2c00965

Abstract

In this study, single-chain atomic crystals (SCACs), Mo₃Se₃^-, which can be uniformly dispersed, with an atomically thin diameter of ∼0.6 nm were modified to disperse in an organic solvent. Various surfactants were chosen to provide steric hindrance to aqueous-dispersed Mo₃Se₃^- by modifying the surface of Mo₃Se₃^-. The organic dispersions of surface-modified Mo₃Se₃^- SCACs in nonpolar solvent (toluene, benzene, and chloroform) were stable with a uniform diameter of 2 nm, and they have enhanced stability from oxidation (>10 days). With the surfactants that have a polystyrene tail group (PS-NH₂), the surface-modified Mo₃Se₃^- SCAC showed high compatibility with a polystyrene polymer matrix. Using the surface-modified Mo₃Se₃^- SCAC, a homogeneous Mo₃Se₃^-/polystyrene/toluene organogel was prepared. More importantly, the Mo₃Se₃^-/polystyrene organogel exhibits significantly enhanced mechanical properties, with the improvement of 202.27% and 279.52% for tensile strength and elongation, respectively, compared with that of the pure organogel. The surface-modified Mo₃Se₃^- had a similar structure with a polymer matrix, and the properties of the polymer can be improved even with a small addition of Mo₃Se₃^-.

Keywords: LiMo3Se3; dispersion; organogel; single-chain atomic crystals (SCACs); surface modification.