Effect of Growth Time on the Structural and Morphological Properties of MoS<sub>2</sub> Synthesized via Hydrothermal Method

Recently, molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ), have been explored as photothermal materials for solar evaporation. However, the optimum phase for photothermal material, 1T-MoS 2 or 2H-MoS 2, is still debatable. In this work, we observed the morphological and structural properties of MoS 2 prepared by a simple hydrothermal process at 200 °C in three different growth times (16, 20, and 24 hours) using Na 2 MoO 4 ·2H 2 O (sodium molybdate) as a Mo precursor, and CS(NH 2 ) 2 (thiourea) as S precursor. MoS 2 nanoflowers were successfully prepared with nanosheets petals and its diameter increased from 0.4 to 2.8 and 4.5 as the growth time increased from 16 to 20 and 24 hours. The increase in growth time also led to improve the Mo:S ratio from 1:8 to 1:5 and facilitate the phase transformation from 1T to 2H as indicated by the shifting of (002) diffraction peak from 9.25° to higher degrees (12.98°, and 14.12°).