A Facile Etching Route for Preparing Ti3C2 MXene with Enhanced Electrochemical Performance in Silver Nitrate Solution

Two-dimensional Ti 3 C 2 MXene is a promising electrode material for high-capacity supercapacitor, which is normally prepared by selective etching of the Al layer from ternary carbide Ti 3 AlC 2 MAX phase using HF acid solution. Here a distinct etching method using a little HF acid is reported. Ti 3 C 2 MXene decorated with Ag nanoparticles are synthesized via a chemical replacement reaction with AgNO 3 solution at room temperature and then evaluated as working electrodes. Due to the synergistic effect between Ag and Ti 3 C 2 matrix, the resulting composite of the 10 wt% AgNO 3 treated sample (Ag-10) exhibits higher specific capacitance of 779.5 F g −1 at the scan rate of 5 mV s −1 in 6 M KOH electrolyte solution and shows good cycling stability with capacitance retaining 95% after 5000-cycles. This work also shows the possibility of using other metallic cations with higher redox potential to prepare high performance MXenes for supercapacitor materials.