Recently, scientists from the Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP) of the Hefei Institute of Material Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported that they have obtained macroscopic V4C3Tx MXene through wet chemical methods.

MXene is a class of two-dimensional inorganic compounds in materials science. These materials consist of transition metal carbides, nitrides or carbonitrides of several atomic layer thicknesses. It was originally reported in 2011 that due to the hydroxyl or terminal oxygen on the surface of MXene materials, they have the metal conductivity of transition metal carbides.

MXenes has shown advantages in electrochemical energy storage, electromagnetic interference shielding, sensors, and catalysis. In addition, due to their metal conductivity, tunable work function and adjustable band gap, they also show excellent performance in electronic and photonic applications, which is an emerging field of MXene research and has great potential.

Generally, the MXenes obtained are micron-sized or smaller because they are usually etched by micron-size

Such small MXene material sizes limit their applications in electronics and photonic devices. How to obtain two-dimensional MXene materials with large or even macro size has become an urgent problem.

To this end, ISSP researchers first grown millimeter-level V4AlC3 single crystals by high-temperature flux method. Then, the V4AlC3 single crystal was immersed in hydrofluoric acid at room temperature for 40 days.

As a result, the V4AlC3 single crystal Al layer was selectively etched, thereby forming a large-sized V4C3Tx MXene.

The availability of macro V4C3Tx MXene will not only provide possibilities for exploring its applications in electronic and photonic devices, but will also stimulate the preparation and application of other macro MXene materials.