Synthesis of fullerene-like MoS(2) nanoparticles and their tribological behavior

• Published in: Journal of materials chemistry 2009-07, Vol.19 (25), p.4368-4374
• Main Authors: Rosentsveig, R, Margolin, A, Gorodnev, A, Popovitz-Biro, R, Feldman, Y, Rapoport, L, Novema, Y, Naveh, G, Tenne, R
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0959-9428
• DOI: 10.1039/b820927h

Further understanding of the growth mechanism and the detailed structure of fullerene-like MoS(2) (IF-M0S2) nanoparticles was achieved by using a new kind of reactor. The annealed nanoparticles consist of > 30 closed layers and their average diameter is 50-80 nm allthough a small ( < 5%) fraction of larger IF nanoparticles was discernible. The majority of the nanoparticles are found to have an oval (pitta-bread or flying-saucer) shape rather than being quasi-spherical. The (002) peak of the powder diffraction pattern reveals only a small (0.3%) shift to lower angles as compared to the bulk (2H) phase. This observation suggests that the structure of the nanoparticles produced in the present reactor is more relaxed as compared to the previously synthesized IF-MoS(2) powder, which exhibited up to 2% shift. The present reactor also permitted scaling up of the production of the IF-MoS(2) to more than 0.6 g/ batch. Impregnation of such nanoparticles in metallic coatings s shown to endow these surfaces with excellent tribological behavior, which suggests numerous applications.