Selective synthesis of fullerene-like (IF) and three-dimensional (3D) WS2

nanoparticles in a particulately fluidized bed

Jun Li, Li Zhou, Qingshan Zhu, Hongzhong Li

State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems, Institute of Process
Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
(E-mail: junli@ipe.ac.cn)
Inorganic fullerene-like tungsten disulfide (IF-WS2 ) has attracted more attention due to their distinctive properties and wide ranges of promising applications, such as solid lubricants, lithium battery cathodes, hydro-desulfurization catalysts, hydrogen storage, elastic and coating materials, and electrochemical intercalation. A number of methods have been proposed for the synthesis of IF-WS2 nanoparticles, e.g. gas-solid reaction, chemical vapor deposition, arc discharge, thermal decomposition, hydrothermal synthesis, sonochemical process and template synthesis. However, the yield of products by these synthesis methods is yet to be improved.
In this study, a novel route for selective synthesis of fullerene-like (IF) and three-dimensional (3D) WS2 through decoupling reduction-sulfurization process was proposed. The diffusion and reaction are two kinetic factors playing an important role in the structure of WS2 . Upon diffusion limitation, the porous β-W phase and
3D-WS2 structure is formed, while the α-W phase and IF-WS2 structure is usually
formed in a reaction-limited condition. The particulate fluidization of the reduced nanoparticles with aggregated particles dispersed uniformly in the fluidized bed was realized. The porous β-W nanoparticles and their particulate fluidization enhance the diffusion of H2 S, resulting in the completion of sulfurization reaction in short time. This newly developed approach is efficient and cost-effective, and might be extended to the large-scale synthesis of other inorganic fullerene-like metal sulfides.
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