Scalable Synthesis of MAX Phase Precursors toward Titanium-Based MXenes for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Peer Bärmann; Lukas Haneke; Jens Matthies Wrogemann; Martin Winter; Olivier Guillon; Tobias Placke; Jesus Gonzalez-Julian

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c05889

Scalable Synthesis of MAX Phase Precursors toward Titanium-Based MXenes for Lithium-Ion Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Jun 9;13(22):26074-26083. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c05889. Epub 2021 Jun 1.

Authors

Peer Bärmann¹, Lukas Haneke¹, Jens Matthies Wrogemann¹, Martin Winter^{1

2}, Olivier Guillon^{3

4}, Tobias Placke¹, Jesus Gonzalez-Julian³

Affiliations

¹ MEET Battery Research Center, Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Münster, Corrensstr. 46, 48149 Münster, Germany.
² Helmholtz Institute Münster, IEK-12, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Corrensstr. 46, 48149 Münster, Germany.
³ Institute of Energy and Climate Research: Materials Synthesis and Processing (IEK-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm-Johnen-Straße, 52428 Jülich, Germany.
⁴ Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA), 52425 Jülich, Germany.

PMID: 34060318
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c05889

Abstract

MXenes have emerged as one of the most interesting material classes, owing to their outstanding physical and chemical properties enabling the application in vastly different fields such as electrochemical energy storage (EES). MXenes are commonly synthesized by the use of their parent phase, i.e., MAX phases, where "M" corresponds to a transition metal, "A" to a group IV element, and "X" to carbon and/or nitrogen. As MXenes display characteristic pseudocapacitive behaviors in EES technologies, their use as a high-power material can be useful for many battery-like applications. Here, a comprehensive study on the synthesis and characterization of morphologically different titanium-based MXenes, i.e., Ti₃C₂ and Ti₂C, and their use for lithium-ion batteries is presented. First, the successful synthesis of large batches (≈1 kg) of the MAX phases Ti₃AlC₂ and Ti₂AlC is shown, and the underlying materials are characterized mainly by focusing on their structural properties and phase purity. Second, multi- and few-layered MXenes are successfully synthesized and characterized, especially toward their ever-present surface groups, influencing the electrochemical behavior to a large extent. Especially multi- and few-layered Ti₃C₂ are achieved, exhibiting almost no oxidation and similar content of surface groups. These attributes enable the precise comparison of the electrochemical behavior between morphologically different MXenes. Since the preparation method for few-layered MXenes is adapted to process both active materials in a "classical" electrode paste processing method, a better comparison between both materials is possible by avoiding macroscopic differences. Therefore, in a final step, the aforementioned electrochemical performance is evaluated to decipher the impact of the morphology difference of the titanium-based MXenes. Most importantly, the delamination leads to an increased non-diffusion-limited contribution to the overall pseudocapacity by enhancing the electrolyte access to the redox-active sites.

Keywords: MAX phase; Ti2C; Ti3C2; few- and multi-layered MXene; lithium-ion batteries.