Green synthesis of metal sulfide nanocrystals through a general composite-surfactants-aided-solvothermal process

In this paper, we developed a generalized and greener composite-surfactants-assisted-solvothermal process (CSSP) to produce colloidal nanoparticles of metal sulfides. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) revealed that single-molecular-layer type of MoS2 nanoparticles with diameter 6–10 nm were successfully synthesized. The molecular structure model of the capped MoS2 nanoparticles was suggested through further examination by infrared spectra. Hexagonal CdS nanocrystals with spherical, triangle, and hollow sphere shapes were controllably synthesized by varying the experimental conditions. A possible in-situ reduction–sulfidation mechanism was proposed for the formation of Ag2S nanocrystals, where the metal ions were reduced to metallic nanoparticles before the generation of sulfides. The obtained nanocrystals through this CSSP approach could provide the building blocks for the bottom-up approach to nanoscale fabrication in nanoscience and nanotechnology.