Ultrasound-assisted fabrication of Ti₃C₂Tx MXene toward enhanced energy storage performance

Ti₃C₂Tx MXenes are normally fabricated by removal of main group element from the corresponding transition metal carbides, and they have been actively studied due to their superior energy storage performance. However, the low efficiency in removal of main group element (named as chemical etching) has significantly limited the application of MXene or MXene-related materials. Herein, we demonstrated an ultrasound-assisted approach to synthesize Ti₃C₂Tx MXene material by using Ti₃AlC₂ as the precursor. The experimental results indicate that the efficiency of chemical etching of Ti₃AlC₂ was dramatically promoted by ultrasound. The etching time was greatly shortened to 8 h while typically 24 h is sufficient in dilute hydrofluoric acid. Particularly, the high etching efficiency was achieved by using 2% hydrofluoric acid under the aid of ultrasound, which is lower in concentration than those reported in the previous literature. The specific capacitance of the 8 h sonicated sample is 155F/g, which is much higher than that of the un-sonicated sample prepared under the same experimental conditions. Additionally, the specific capacitance retention of the prepared 8 h sonicated sample was 97.5% after 20,000 cycles of charging/discharging, exhibiting an outstanding energy storage stability compared with the materials reported in previous literatures. It was proposed that removal of AlF₃ from the surface of the etched particles was significantly promoted and the hydrogen bonds between the terminations of two different adjacent layers were broken by the acoustic cavitation effect of ultrasound.