A facile route for large-scale synthesis of molybdenum phosphide nanoparticles with high surface area

In this study, we report a novel, simple and large-scale (about 100 g) synthesis of MoP nanoparticles with a high surface area (439.3m(2) g(-1)). The current approach uses a solid mixture of MoO3, (NH4)(2)HPO4 and phenol-formaldehyde resin (PFR) as a precursor and employs an inert gas as a feed gas. The formation mechanism of MoP was proposed by various techniques, including thermogravimetry-mass spectrometry (TG-MS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and carbon content analysis.