Formation of single-phase stage-1 MoCl5GIC in the presence of MoO3

Stage-1 MoCl5—graphite intercalation compound (GIC) was successfully prepared in a single phase by heating the mixture of MoCl5 and MoO3 with natural graphite of different sizes ranging from 10 to 400 μm. The stage structure of resultant MoCl5GICs was found to be dependent on the amount of MoO3. Use of MoO3 was also found to accelerate the intercalation reaction, similar to MoOCl3 in our earlier studies. However, MoO3 was much better than MoOCl3 because of its stability, availability and non-hygroscopic nature. A comparative study of the use of MoOCl3 with MoCl5 to form the pure stage-1 MoCl5GIC was also carried out.