Session: Research Posters

Paper Number: 120340

120340 - Salt-Assisted Assembly of Mxene on Arbitrary Polymers 

Two-dimensional titanium carbide (Ti₃C₂T_x) commonly called MXene captures great interest from the 2D material community for the last decades owing to its metallic nature and adjustable surface terminations, enabling its great potential in the applications of energy storage, catalysts, environmental protection, EMI shielding, and thermal management. Beyond monolayer film, assembling MXenes into macroscopic films, either freestanding films or coatings on substrates, endows themselves practical meaning in achieving state-of-the-art performance, where the MXene-substrate interaction usually determines the reliability. Because of the chemically active terminations on solution-processed MXenes, bonding MXene layers by molecular to form chemical bonds (i.e., ionic, hydrogen, and covalent bond) is regarded as a powerful strategy to build robust assemblies. Similar interactions are also employed in coating MXenes on diverse substrates such as metals, ceramics, and polymers. Among the massive substrates, polymers feature preferable mechanical flexibility and anti-corrosion capability over the others, enabling them an ideal material as supports. Whereas, for most synthetic polymers, the inert surface hampers the wetting of MXene aqueous solution and causes terrible assembly. Even though there are some smart technologies successfully solving this issue, such as introducing adhesive polymer binder (i.g., polydopamine), activating substrates (i.g., oxygen plasma and acid/base treatment), and creating electrostatic interaction by adding surfactant (i.g., polyelectrolyte), the inevitable reduction on the performance (i.g., electrical conductivity) of MXene assemblies and substrate damage is always neglected. Thus, it is urgent to develop a non-destructive method to apply the MXene assemblies on substrates.  

MXenes with excellent conductivity and infrared screening capability are promising coating materials for next-generation flexible electronics and wearable systems. However, in a solution-based assembly process, hydrophilic MXenes are not compatible with many polymers, especially some high-performance polymers with inert and/or hydrophobic surfaces, such as Kevlar. Unlike many destructive surface chemical methods that induce dangling bonds between MXene and polymer, we proposed a universal solution-processed salt-assisted assembly (SAA) strategy that enables ultra-thin and uniform Ti3C2Tx MXene assemblies on diverse polymers without any destructive modification. The salt added in the MXene aqueous solution neutralizes the charged MXene and “dehydrates” MXenes from the water solution leading to the ultrafast assembly of MXene on arbitrary polymer substrates with high conductivity. A library of salts has been demonstrated to be effective. Importantly, our method enables Ti₃C₂T_x assembly on high-performance polymers such as Kevlar fabric, capable of thermal modulation with excellent stability. This SAA strategy will significantly broaden the applications of MXene coatings. 

Presenting Author: Liang Zhao Villanova University

Presenting Author Biography: Liang Zhao is a Ph.D. student at Villanova University. The current research is the assembly of nanomaterials on polymer substrates and their corresponding applications.

Authors:

Liang Zhao Villanova University
Lingyi Bi Drexel University
Jiayue Hu Temple University
Guanhui Gao Shared Equipment Authority, Rice University
Danzhen Zhang Drexel
Yun Li Villanova University
Aidan Flynn Villanova University
Teng Zhang Drexel University
Ruocun Wang Drexel University
Mingyuan Sun Villanova University
Ling Liu Temple University
Yury Gogotsi Drexel University
Bo Li Villanova University