Bi2Se3 decorated recyclable liquid-exfoliated MoS2 nanosheets: Towards suppress smoke emission and improve mechanical properties of epoxy resin

Bimetallic compounds have been proved superior suppression effect on smoke emission during combustion of polymers. In this work, MoS2/Bi2Se3 (MB) hybrids were prepared by a facile wet chemical method and showed superior performance on smoke suppression of EP matrix during combustion. N-vinyl pyrrolidone (NVP) was employed to exfoliate molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets in a recyclable method, which showed high efficiency and was recyclable. Exfoliated MoS2 exhibited large surface area and used as carriers to synthesize MB hybrids. Considering the catalytic effect of bismuth and molybdenum, the hybrids had a great influence on the smoke emission behaviors of EP composites. The smoke production was obviously suppressed during the flaming combustion (more than 22% and 23% decrease obtained from cone calorimeter and steady state tube furnace, respectively) or smolder processes (more than 23% decrease obtained from smoke chamber) at only 1 wt% content of MB hybrids. What's more, due to superior dispersion state, the addition of MB hybrids also enhanced the mechanical properties of EP matrix, including wear resistance and tensile property. This work provided a safe and green exfoliation method of MoS2 to prepare polymers/MoS2 composites and also constructed a novel binary hybrids for enhancing combination performances of polymers.