Thickness-independent capacitance of vertically aligned liquid-crystalline MXenes

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 557; no. 7705; pp. 409 - 412
• Main Authors: Xia, Yu, Mathis, Tyler S., Zhao, Meng-Qiang, Anasori, Babak, Dang, Alei, Zhou, Zehang, Cho, Hyesung, Gogotsi, Yury, Yang, Shu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-05-2018; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/301/357/1018; 639/301/923/919; 639/4077/4079/4105; Alignment; Capacitance; Carbides; Carbon; Catalysis; Density; Electric properties; Electrochemical analysis; Electrochemistry; Electrode materials; Electrodes; Energy; Energy management; ENERGY STORAGE; Fabrication; Film thickness; Heavy metals; Humanities and Social Sciences; Inorganic compounds; Interlayers; Ion transport; Letter; Materials selection; multidisciplinary; MXenes; Nanomaterials; Nanotechnology; Nanotubes; Nitrides; Observations; Phase transitions; Porosity; Power lines; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Self-assembly; Shearing; Sustainable production; Thick films; Titanium carbide; Transition metals
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0109-z

The scalable and sustainable manufacture of thick electrode films with high energy and power densities is critical for the large-scale storage of electrochemical energy for application in transportation and stationary electric grids. Two-dimensional nanomaterials have become the predominant choice of electrode material in the pursuit of high energy and power densities owing to their large surface-area-to-volume ratios and lack of solid-state diffusion
1
,
2
. However, traditional electrode fabrication methods often lead to restacking of two-dimensional nanomaterials, which limits ion transport in thick films and results in systems in which the electrochemical performance is highly dependent on the thickness of the film
1
–
4
. Strategies for facilitating ion transport—such as increasing the interlayer spacing by intercalation
5
–
8
or introducing film porosity by designing nanoarchitectures
9
,
10
—result in materials with low volumetric energy storage as well as complex and lengthy ion transport paths that impede performance at high charge–discharge rates. Vertical alignment of two-dimensional flakes enables directional ion transport that can lead to thickness-independent electrochemical performances in thick films
11
–
13
. However, so far only limited success
11
,
12
has been reported, and the mitigation of performance losses remains a major challenge when working with films of two-dimensional nanomaterials with thicknesses that are near to or exceed the industrial standard of 100 micrometres. Here we demonstrate electrochemical energy storage that is independent of film thickness for vertically aligned two-dimensional titanium carbide (Ti
3
C
2
T
x
), a material from the MXene family (two-dimensional carbides and nitrides of transition metals (M), where X stands for carbon or nitrogen). The vertical alignment was achieved by mechanical shearing of a discotic lamellar liquid-crystal phase of Ti
3
C
2
T
x
. The resulting electrode films show excellent performance that is nearly independent of film thickness up to 200 micrometres, which makes them highly attractive for energy storage applications. Furthermore, the self-assembly approach presented here is scalable and can be extended to other systems that involve directional transport, such as catalysis and filtration.
Electrode films prepared from a liquid-crystal phase of vertically aligned two-dimensional titanium carbide show electrochemical energy storage that is nearly independent of film thickness.