Organic Dispersion of Mo<sub>3</sub>Se<sub>3</sub><sup>–</sup> 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
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–.