Research on the electrochromic properties of Mxene intercalated vanadium pentoxide xerogel films

Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) is one of the most popular electrochromic material for electrochromic devices due to its excellent storage capacity of lithium ions and unique properties of anodic/cathodic coloring. However, V2O5 generally has low conductivity, causing a long coloration/bleaching response time. Consequently, its practical use as a electrochromic material in practical industrial applications remains limited. In this paper, V2O5/Mxene intercalation films (VOM) were prepared by sol–gel method with spin-coating technology. The structure and morphology of the intercalation films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and other testing techniques. The optical properties of the films were characterized by ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy, and the electrochemical properties were analyzed by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA). The results showed that the Mxene intercalation of V2O5 xerogel widened the interplanar distance. The bleaching time of the intercalation films was 3.20 s and the coloring time was 6.20 s when the Mxene doping was 3 wt%. Meanwhile, the transmittance contrast increased from 7.70 to 49.03% at 372 nm compared with the V2O5 xerogel films.