Facile one-step exfoliation of large-size 2D materials via simply shearing in triethanolamine

Two-dimensional nanosheets has attracted considerable attentions because of its unique structure and properties. We provided an extremely facile one-step method for dispersing and exfoliating graphite, h-BN, MoS2 and WS2 only by simply shearing in triethanolamine (TEA), which acted as the mono-solvent system to exfoliate 2D materials for the first time. The resulted nanosheets were in large size corresponding to raw powders because no ultrasonic treatment were conducted. Benefiting from strong steric hindrance formed by hydrogen bonded TEA molecules, the obtained dispersions were highly stable (over 9 months). Characterization results indicated that these obtained 2D materials possessed large sizes and ultrathin thicknesses. This method is novel, simple, effective and environmentally-friendly.