The novel and facile preparation of 2DMoS2@C composites for dye adsorption application

In this work, we proposed a convenient strategy for preparing the MoS2-based adsorbents by combining liquidphase shear exfoliation and annealing. We selected carboxymethylcellulose sodium (CMC) as the additive to promote the exfoliation of bulk MoS2 in the pollution-free ethanol/water mixture system. The results showed that the addition of appropriate CMC increased the viscosity of the suspension and prevented 2D MoS2 nanosheets agglomeration to improve the shear-exfoliating effect. By optimizing the operating conditions, the average lateral dimension and average layer number of 2D MoS2 nanosheets were around 100 nm and around 4 layers, respectively. The composites of 2D MoS2 nanosheets and porous carbon (2DMoS(2)@C) were obtained after annealing the composites of 2D MoS2 nanosheets and CMC. Furthermore, the adsorption behaviors of 2DMoS(2)@C for the removal of rhodamine B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB) were investigated. Interestingly, the 2DMoS(2)@C exhibited superior performance towards MB removal than towards RhB removal because of the pore structure and dye molecular size. The theoretical adsorption capacity of 2DMoS(2)@C for MB removal calculated by the Langmuir isotherm model could get 272 mg/g. The adsorption mechanism of 2DMoS(2)@C was also analyzed in detail. This is a facile, efficient and economical method for preparing adsorbents based on 2D materials.