Synthesis and Characterization of 2d Metal Carbide (Mxene) and its Composites for Energy Storage Applications

Abstract

With the everyday expanding world of science and technology, need for sophisticated energy devices is also increasing day by day. For the past 15 years, graphene was on the top of list for its utilization in energy storage devices. After the discovery of MXene in 2011, extensive research has been carried out to study these materials for energy storage devices. Metallic conductivity, excellent hydrophilicity and tunable surface terminations made MXenes good candidate for energy storage devices. MXenes are also very appealing to researches because of their combined properties of metals and ceramics. Most of research is focused on titanium carbide MXene while Vanadium carbide MXene is less explored. In this work, electrochemical behavior of V2C is discussed. In this research V2C (MXene) was obtained by the chemical etching of V2AlC (MAX) using 50% Hydrofluoric acid (HF) as etching agent. MXene was prepared at different etching times of 80h, 92h, 115h, 120h and 127h. Amount of HF was varied from 10mL to 20mL per gram of MAX. Nanocomposite of V2C with silver (Ag) was synthesized by direct reaction of MXene with Silver Nitrate (AgNO3). Nanocomposite of V2C with TiO2 was obtained by hydrothermal method. All of these prepared materials were characterized using FTIR, Raman, XRD, SEM and EDS. Electrochemical analysis of these materials for their application in supercapacitor were done using Cyclic Voltammetry (CV). Specific capacitance obtained using CV analysis of MXene was 900mF/g which is less than its composite i.e. 1446.4 mF/g and 2478 mF/g for V2C-TiO2 nanocomposite and V2C-Ag nanocomposite, respectively