Facile Synthesis and Characterization of Molybdenum Carbides/Carbon Nanocomposites by Laser Pyrolysis

Abstract

This short communication reports on the facile and scalable synthesis and characterization of molybdenum carbides/carbon nanocomposites prepared by laser pyrolysis in a one-step process. Water and commercial molybdenum oxide were used as low-cost environmentally friendly precursors. The nanocomposites are mainly composed of two types of carbides with different apparent crystallite sizes, 21 ± 1 nm and 9 ± 1 nm for Mo2C and MoC1−x, respectively. Thanks to a simple annealing at 500 °C under argon, it was possible to increase the specific surface area around 50 m2/g without changing the morphology of the nanocomposite.