Carbon-metal nanosheets from the water-hexane interface

This report describes a new approach to prepare atom thick metal-sulfide-graphene nanosheets produced by the subsequent annealing of crosslinked carbon-metal film formed at the water-hexane interface. A bipyridine dithiol (BPD) layer self-assembled in the water-hexane hydrophilic/hydrophobic biphasic medium was used to encapsulate metal ions (M²⁺) (M = Co or Ni). Subsequently, the BPD-M²⁺ film was crosslinked using UV-light. Then the resultant carbon-metal nanosheets were annealed at high temperature under N₂, transforming these molecular sheets into a homogeneous nano-crystalline metal-sulfide-graphene hybrids (MSGH). This approach can produce semi-transparent conducting films having marked conductivity dependence on the number of nanosheets in a stack. The suggested strategy opens up broad prospects toward the MSGH architecture using a simple process with new properties for new applications such as energy conversion/storage and electronics.