Turning waste into treasure: no additive MXene deposition ink for miniature supercapacitors

【Research Background】

The development of smart electronics and the Internet of Things (IoT) has greatly promoted the development of functional materials and devices, especially small supercapacitors (or microsupercapacitors, MSC). Assembling MSCs with high energy density, long cycle life, and low-cost fast charge / discharge rates remains a major challenge. Although patterning methods such as template filtering, lithography, spray masking, and laser / plasma cutting can partially meet the requirements, the lengthy procedures and material waste involved inevitably limit the large-scale implementation of these schemes for high-performance MSC produce. This means that there is a high demand for technologies that seek novel materials and develop scalable devices at low cost.

【Achievement Introduction】

Recently, the Swiss laboratory Empa functional polymer Professor Frank Nüesch task group in top international academic journals Advanced Materials published an article entitled: T urning INTO Treasure Trash: Additive as Free MXene Sediment Inks for Screen-Printed Micro-Supercapacitors research papers, The paper shows an additive-free two-dimensional titanium carbide MXene water-based ink with stretchable screen printing with certain rheological properties . Importantly, the ink consists mainly of unetched precursors and deposits of multiple layers of MXene, which are usually discarded after delamination . Screen-printed structures are presented on paper with high resolution and spatial uniformity, including micro-supercapacitors, conductive lines, integrated circuit paths, etc. The results show that the layered nanosheets in the layered particles have the function of highly efficient conductive binder, maintaining the mechanical integrity of the metal conductive network. The area capacitance (158 mF cm ^-2 ) and energy density (1.64 μWh cm ^-2 ) of printed micro-supercapacitors are far superior to other devices based on MXene or graphene. The screen printing “turn waste into treasure” ink formulation strategy highlights the potential of waste-free MXene deposit printing technology in scalable and sustainable production of next-generation wearable smart electronic products.

【Graphic introduction】

Schematic 1. Schematic of direct screen printing of MXene deposits

Figure 1. Characteristics of MXene deposition ink

Figure 2. Screen printing of MXene deposited ink

Figure 3. Electrochemical characterization of screen-printed MXene microsupercapacitors

Figure 4. Effect of device configuration on electrochemical performance

Figure 5. Scalable production of micro-supercapacitors based on MXene deposited ink

【Summary of this article】

This article demonstrates the formulation of additive-free MXene deposition inks and scalable printing of various patterns and structures with high resolution and spatial uniformity . While maintaining continuous metal mesh and mechanical integrity, MXene nanosheets containing a small amount of delamination are essential to promote ink formulation. The printed elastic MSC has excellent charge storage performance, including high area capacitance and high energy / power density, surpassing all printed MSCs known to date. This screen printing technology based on MXene‘s "mesh" deposits is wasteless, scalable and cost-effective. Therefore, it is related to the Internet of Things (IoT), smart labels, smart packaging and other fields, which require components that are cheaper and easier to integrate. Considering the rich MXene family , the "turn waste into treasure" ink formulation strategy has a wider range of applications. Their excellent performance in energy storage, sensors, antennas, electromagnetic shielding, etc. has been confirmed, and the importance of these inks may be increasing.

Literature link:

https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202000716.

Source: MXene Frontier