Swift tuning from spherical molybdenum microspheres to hierarchical molybdenum disulfide nanostructures by switching from solvothermal to hydrothermal synthesis route

Herein, we report the synthesis of metallic molybdenum microspheres and hierarchical MoS2 nanostructures by facile template-free solvothermal and hydrothermal approach, respectively. The morphological transition of the Mo microspheres to hierarchical MoS2 nanoflower architectures is observed to be accomplished with change in solvent from ethylenediamine to water. The resultant marigold flower-like MoS2 nanostructures are few layers thick with poor crystallinity while spherical ball-like molybdenum microspheres exhibit better crystalline nature. This is the first report pertaining to the synthesis of Mo microspheres and MoS2 nanoflowers without using any surfactant, template or substrate in hydro/solvothermal regime. It is opined that such nanoarchitectures of MoS2 are useful candidates for energy related applications such as hydrogen evolution reaction, Li ion battery and pseudocapacitors. Inquisitively, metallic Mo can potentially act as catalyst as well as fairly economical Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) substrate in biosensor applications.