Facial Synthesis, Stability, and Interaction of Ti3C2Tx@PC Composites for High-Performance Biocathode Microbial Electrosynthesis Systems

Ahsan Riaz Khan; Weiming Wang; Adnan Raza Altaf; Shumaila Shaukat; Hai-Jun Zhang; Ata Ur Rehman; Zhang Jun; Luogen Peng

doi:10.1021/acsomega.2c08163

Facial Synthesis, Stability, and Interaction of Ti₃C₂T_x@PC Composites for High-Performance Biocathode Microbial Electrosynthesis Systems

ACS Omega. 2023 Aug 8;8(33):29949-29958. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c08163. eCollection 2023 Aug 22.

Authors

Ahsan Riaz Khan^{1

2}, Weiming Wang³, Adnan Raza Altaf⁴, Shumaila Shaukat⁵, Hai-Jun Zhang^{1

2}, Ata Ur Rehman⁵, Zhang Jun^{6

7}, Luogen Peng³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Interventional and Vascular Surgery, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200072, China.
² National United Engineering Laboratory for Biomedical Material Modification, Branden Industrial Park, Qihe Economic & Development Zone, Dezhou City, Shandong 251100, China.
³ The Affiliated Changsha Central Hospital, Department of Oncology, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Changsha 410008, China.
⁴ School of Engineering, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
⁵ College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi'an 710069, China.
⁶ Research Center for Translational Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.
⁷ Shanghai Institute of Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation, Shanghai 200020, China.

Abstract

Developing high-performance biocathodes remain one of the most challenging aspects of the microbial electrosynthesis (MES) system and the primary factor limiting its output. Herein, a hollow porous carbon (PC) fabricated with MXenes coated over an electrode was developed for MES systems to facilitate the direct delivery of CO₂ to microorganisms colonized. The result highlighted that MXene@PC (Ti₃C₂T_x@PC) has a surface area of 434 m²/g. The Ti₃C₂T_x@PC MES cycle shows that in cycle 4 and cycle 5, the values are -309.2 and -352.3. Cyclic voltammetry showed that the coated electrode current response (mA) increased from -4.5 to -20.2. The substantial redox peaks of Ti₃C₂T_x@PC biofilms are displayed at -741, -516, and -427 mV vs Ag/AgCl, suggesting an enhanced electron transfer owing to the Ti₃C₂T_x@PC complex coating. Additionally, more active sites enhanced mass transfer and microbial development, resulting in a 46% rise in butyrate compared to the uncoated control. These findings demonstrate the value of PC modification as a method for MES-based product selection.