Application of MXenes in Energy Storage

MXenes are receiving intense interests in energy storage field due to their unique characteristics. Here, we will show our recent work on the application of MXene-based materials and electrodes for energy storage. A series of 3D structured MXene electrodes, including MXene foam, porous MXene film, 3D carbon-coated MXene were constructed, which present high capacity, excellent cycle and rate performances for batteries and supercapacitors. Moreover, some MXene-based nanohybrids were prepared, in which MXene nanosheets can not only provide efficient pathways for fast transport of electrons and ions, but also buffer the volume change of the active materials during charge/discharge, making the nanocomposites exhibit much enhanced performance as anodes for LIBs. In addition, we proposed a novel strategy to employ 2D MXene nanosheets as a multifunctional conductive binder for electrode fabrication of batteries and supercapacitors, through a simple vacuum-assisted co-filtration of MXene sheets and various active material (such as activated carbon, hard carbon, graphite carbon, silicon, sulfur, etc.). Different from the conventional insulate binder such as PVDF and PTFE, the MXene nanosheets act as conductive binder, active material as well as flexible backbone, and can also buffer the volume change of the active materials. As a result, the MXene-bonded electrodes present much superior electrochemical performances to the conventional PVDF/PTFE-bonded electrodes, indicating a promising electrode fabrication strategy for energy storage.