Plenary Lecture | Monday, 19 June 2017 | 11:00 – 11:45 hrs

Inorganic Graphene Analogues: Recent Results

Abstract: Graphene has been a sensational discovery of recent years. In the last two to three years, there has been effort to prepare graphene-like layered inorganic materials such as MoS2, WS2, GaS and BN. Several methods of synthesis of such nanosheets have been developed.1,2 Some of the recent results on few-layer metal chalcogenides and BN will be presented. Specially interesting are the physical properties of these nano materials such as magnetism and superconductivity.3 Transistors and devices have been fabricated with many of the layered inorganic materials.2,3 A new graphene-like material is Bx Cy Nz with high surface area and novel gas adsorptive properties. These materials have other extraordinary properties, their use as electrocatalysts being specially noteworthy.4 Specially noteworthy are the novel materials obtained by cross-linking MoS2 with other 2D materials or by functionalizing MoS2 sheets.5,6 Thus, interaction of electron donor and acceptor molecules has unraveled the electronic structure and properties of phospherene. Covalent cross-linking C3N4 and MoS2 favors photochemical splitting of water.

1) C.N.R. Rao, H.S.S.R. Matte and U. Maitra, Angew Chem. Int. Ed. 52, 13162 (2013). 2) C.N.R. Rao, U. Maitra and U.V. Waghmare, Chem. Phys. Lett. (Frontiers article) 609, 172 (2014). 3) C.N.R. Rao, K. Gopalakrishnan and U. Maitra, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces (spot light) 7, 7809 (2015). 4) M. Chhetri, S. Maitra, H. Chakraborty, U.V. Waghmare and C.N.R. Rao, Energy & Environ. Sci. 9, 95 (2016). 5) P. Vishnoi, A. Sampath, U.V. Waghmare and C.N.R. Rao, Chem-Euro J. 23, 886 (2017). 6) K. Pramoda, U. Gupta, M. Chhetri, A. Bandopadhyay, S.K. Pati and C.N.R. Rao, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, DOI.10.1021/acsami.7b00085 (2017).