Ultrafast, One-Step, Salt-Solution-Based Acoustic Synthesis of Ti3C2 MXene

Ahmed El Ghazaly; Heba Ahmed; Amgad R Rezk; Joseph Halim; Per O Å Persson; Leslie Y Yeo; Johanna Rosen

doi:10.1021/acsnano.0c07242

Ultrafast, One-Step, Salt-Solution-Based Acoustic Synthesis of Ti₃C₂ MXene

ACS Nano. 2021 Mar 23;15(3):4287-4293. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.0c07242. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

Authors

Ahmed El Ghazaly¹, Heba Ahmed², Amgad R Rezk², Joseph Halim¹, Per O Å Persson¹, Leslie Y Yeo², Johanna Rosen¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (IFM) Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden.
² Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia.

Abstract

The current quest for two-dimensional transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes) has been to circumvent the slow, hazardous, and laborious multistep synthesis procedures associated with conventional chemical MAX phase exfoliation. Here, we demonstrate a one-step synthesis method with local Ti₃AlC₂ MAX to Ti₃C₂T_z MXene conversion on the order of milliseconds, facilitated by proton production through solution dissociation under megahertz frequency acoustic excitation. These protons combined with fluorine ions from LiF to selectively etch the MAX phase into MXene, whose delamination is aided by the acoustic forcing. These results have important implications for the future applicability of MXenes, which crucially depend on the development of more efficient synthesis procedures. For proof-of-concept, we show that flexible electrodes fabricated by this method exhibit comparable electrochemical performance to that previously reported.

Keywords: MAX phase; MXene; electrochemistry; surface acoustic waves; synthesis.