Preparation of Mo₂CT_x MXene with high specific surface area by etching of acetic acid/acetate solution

Abstract

Mo₂CT_x MXene is a novel two-dimensional material, which is generally made by the etching of inorganic acid solutions, such as hydrofluoric acid (HF) or hydrochloric acid (HCl). Those solutions are always corrosive and hazardous. In this paper, a mild organic acid, acetic acid (CH₃COOH), was selected to synthesize Mo₂CT_x MXene. 30 mL acetic acid (HAc) with the concentration of 13 mol/L was mixed with 2 g acetate (CH₃COONa or CH₃COOK) and 10 mL water to make etching solution (NaAc+HAc or KAc+HAc). In the solution, the concentration of CH₃COO⁻ was 10 mol/L, the concentration of Na⁺/K⁺ is 0.6/0.5 mol/L. The pH value is 2.8. Mo₂CT_x was obtained by hydrothermal etching at 240 °C for 1 d. Compared with the general method of HF etching, the etchant is milder and the etching process is safer. On the surface of Mo₂CT_x nanosheet made by this method, acetate group (CH₃COO⁻) was adsorbed as termination, which is larger than the F/O/OH termination of that made by general HF etching. The lattice parameter c (LPc) of Mo₂CT_x etched with NaAc+HAc/KAc+HAc is 21.09 Å/20.89 Å. Moreover, the specific surface areas of the samples etched by NaAc+HAc and KAc+HAc were 18.1 m²/g and 14.1 m²/g, respectively, which were much larger than those etched by conventional methods. As the anode of lithium-ion battery, the specific capacity under current density of 100 mA/g at 100th cycle was 108 mA·h/g, which is higher than the capacity of samples made by general HF etching. This work reports a novel method to make Mo₂CT_x MXene by the solution of mild acetic acid. The samples made by this method had very high specific surface area and relatively high lithium-storage performance.

Keywords

MXene / acetic acid / specific surface area / lithium-ion-batteries

References

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