title: Surface Tension Components Based Selection of Cosolvents for Efficient Liquid Phase Exfoliation of 2D Materials.
abstract: A proper design of direct liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) for 2D materials as graphene, MoS2 , WS2 , h-BN, Bi2 Se3 , MoSe2 , SnS2 , and TaS2 with common cosolvents is carried out based on considering the polar and dispersive components of surface tensions of various cosolvents and 2D materials. It has been found that the exfoliation efficiency is enhanced by matching the ratio of surface tension components of cosolvents to that of the targeted 2D materials, based on which common cosolvents composed of IPA/water, THF/water, and acetone/water can be designed for sufficient LPE process. In this context, the library of low-toxic and low-cost solvents with low boiling points for LPE is infinitely enlarged when extending to common cosolvents. Polymer-based composites reinforced with a series of different 2D materials are compared with each other. It is demonstrated that the incorporation of cosolvents-exfoliated 2D materials can substantially improve the mechanical and thermal properties of polymer matrices. Typically, with the addition of 0.5 wt% of such 2D material as MoS2 nanosheets, the tensile strength and Young's modulus increased up to 74.85% and 136.97%, respectively. The different enhancement effect of 2D materials is corresponded to the intrinsic properties and LPE capacity of 2D materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.|Institute of Special Materials and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jianfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Jingjie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Special Materials and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Man
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Pei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Institute of Special Materials and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jingxuan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Special Materials and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaoguang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Junhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Xifan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Special Materials and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Mingxin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vajtai
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lou
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Pulickel M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Ajayan
keywords: 2D materials; cosolvents; liquid phase exfoliation; surface tension; thermal properties