Low-Temperature Hydrothermal Synthesis of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

A new aqueous solution based approach has been proposed to prepare transition metal dichalcogenides by hydrothermal reaction between aqueous transition metal salts and Na2S2O3 or Na2SeSO3 at the low temperature of 130−140 °C. Pyrite NiS2, CoS2, FeS2, and NiSe2 and layered MoS2 and MoSe2 have been prepared this way. Transmission electron microscopy images show that these products consist of nanoscaled crystallites. The effect of different reaction conditions on the nature of products is discussed. The surface areas for the samples have been measured.