One-step synthesis of MoS₂ nanoparticles with different morphologies for electromagnetic wave absorption

Electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing materials have an important application in people's living environment. EMW absorption properties are affected by the morphology of EMW absorbing materials. MoS₂ is two-dimensional layered structure and complex shaped structures can be formed by different stacking between layers. Here, we prepared flower-shaped MoS₂ nanoparticles and flake-shaped MoS₂ nanoparticles by hydrothermal method, and investigated the EMW absorption performance of both samples. Flower-shaped MoS₂ nanoparticles had a larger specific surface area than that of flake-shaped MoS₂ nanoparticles, so that the flower-shaped MoS₂ nanoparticles had a superior EMW absorption performance. It was found that the samples consisting of 30 wt% flower-shaped MoS₂ nanoparticles in the wax matrix based composites exhibited an effective EMW absorption bandwidth of 7.6 GHz (10.32–17.92 GHz) with the thickness of 3.0 mm. The minimum RL value of −39.20 dB was observed at 17.60 GHz for the sample with a thickness of 2.4 mm. The present work has a significant potential for the development of EMW absorbing materials with single metal sulfide.