RSC Advances., 2019; 9: 37061-37066.

Williams, A,  Donno, R,  Tirelli, N & Dryfe, R.

We report a novel, inexpensive and green method for preparing aqueous dispersions of various biofunctional transition-metal dichalcogenides (MoS₂, WS₂, TiS₂ and MoSe₂) and their related heterostructures directly via ultrasonic exfoliation mediated by the presence of phospholipids. The dispersions predominantly consist of few-layer flakes coated with 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC), as confirmed by Raman, photoluminescence and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies. The phospholipid coating renders the flakes biofunctional, which coupled with the unique properties of transition-metal dichalcogenides and their heterostructures, suggests this method will have great potential in biological applications..