MXenes-Mining—A Decade with MXenes

MXenes is a family of transition metal carbides, nitrides or carbonitride materials that includes more than 20 different chemical compounds, that can be each synthesized with different methods and post-processed in multiple ways, enabling them to be used in a variety of applications. Consequentially, several thousand articles have been published that either mention MXenes or target them. Herein, we have gathered 15,116 articles since 2011, including the first publication about MXene, up to 31 December 2021 from 12 main scientific journal publishers (1. Cambridge University Press, 2. Elsevier (ScienceDirect), 3. Institute Of Physics Publishing (IOP), 4. John Wiley & Sons: Wiley Online (Wiley), 5. Nature Publishing Group (Nature), 6. Oxford Academic Press, 7. SAGE, 8. Springer, 9. Taylor & Francis, 10. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 11. Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and 12. American Chemistry Society (ACS)). We visualize the results in a range of graphs and figures and try to find trends, correlations between them, but also to identify the gaps that this domain may have for future investigations. We probe the growth of MXenes through the year, statistical occurrence of keywords, MXenes’ properties, cluster of applications, specific applications, synthesis methods, which MXenes have been investigated the most over the last decades, 3D architectures, theoretical against experimental articles and combinations of these areas. On one hand, it is obvious that the MXenes research community grows every year dramatically, but on the other hand the investigations are very limited towards specific aspects of this 2D family. Initially, the scientific body has related MXenes with the Ti₃C₂ and there is very little attention for the rest of the materials. Hence, the properties and the applications that are targeted are also limited and on the way that Ti₃C₂ can achieve high performance. There is the need to investigate MXenes further than the titanium carbides, to gain a more comprehensive knowledge for these 2DMs from their synthesis to in what applications can be used. In addition, the problems that occur from the HF-based synthesis also must addressed either with post-process of the MXenes or by using a different path to synthesize these extortionary 2DMs, such as alkali treatment, electrochemical-etching and molten salts; especially the last one, due to the homogeneous surface chemistry of MXenes which is the most crucial advantage and disadvantage of these materials at the moment.