Estimated Hansen Solubility Parameters of Low-Dimensional Vanadium, Niobium, and Tantalum Dichalcogenides

Low-dimensional flakes of layered transition metal dichalcogenides TaX₂ (X = S, Se, Te), VSe₂, and NbSe₂ were fabricated by the ultrasonic liquid-phase exfoliation method. Hansen solubility parameters of those dispersions were estimated by measuring extinction in various liquid environments. It has been shown that the content of low-dimensional dichalcogenide particles in a sample increases with a decrease in the Hansen distance between the dichalcogenide and the exfoliation medium. A method is proposed to qualitatively estimate the effect of the exfoliation medium on the size of forming particles and it is demonstrated that a decrease in the δ_p and δ_h magnitudes in the systems leads to a decrease in the size of the resulting flakes.