Synthesis and electrochemical behavior of monolayer-Ti₃C₂T_x for capacitive deionization

Abstract

MXene materials have got great attention from researchers of environmental treatment for the great electrochemical performance. Monolayer-Ti₃C₂T_x (T_x is the surface terminal groups such as —O, —OH and/or —F species), as a typical structural MXene, always shows better chemical-physical characteristics than multilayer-Ti₃C₂T_x. Thus, we prepared monolayer-Ti₃C₂T_x electrode by HF etching method and absolute ethyl alcohol intercalation-delamination treatment for capacitive deionization (CDI). The prepared monolay-Ti₃C₂T_x shows a higher specific surface area (235.6 m²/g) and a thinner thickness (0.8 nm). Moreover, a series of systematic investigation demonstrated that monolayer-Ti₃C₂T_x has obvious promotional phenomenon on electrochemical properties (e.g., mass specific capacitance increased from 52.1 F/g to 144.7 F/g). The NaCl adsorption capacity of monolayer-Ti₃C₂T_x, is 30.7 mg/g in 1000 mg/L NaCl solution at 1.2 V. We concluded that the electro-sorption mechanism could be expressed as double electric layer and monolayer coverage by a good fitting of Langmuir isotherms and the pseudo-second-order kinetics equation. This work would provide a new strategy for the application of monolayer-Ti₃C₂T_x material in wastewater treatment in the future.

Keywords

monolayer-Ti₃C₂T_x / capacitive deionization / NaCl / electro-sorption mechanism / MXene materials

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