Abstract
MXenes are a new class of two-dimensional materials with properties that make them important for applications that include batteries, capacitive energy storage, and electrocatalysis. These materials can be exfoliated and delaminated to create high surface areas with interlayers accessibility. Intercalation is known to be possible, and it is critical for many applications including electrochemical energy storage, water purification, and sensing. However, little is known about the nature of the intercalant and bonding interactions between the intercalant within the MXene. We have investigated urea interaction within a titanium carbide based MXene using inelastic neutron scattering (INS) to probe the state of intercalated species. By comparison with reference materials, we find that under intercalation conditions urea decomposes readily, leading to intercalation of ammonium cations observable by INS and evolving carbon dioxide detected by infrared spectroscopy. Reactive molecular dynamics calculations were conducted to provide atomistic insights about reaction pathways and their energetics. These results have implications for understanding intercalation in active layered materials.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 10305-10314 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Journal of the American Chemical Society |
| Volume | 140 |
| Issue number | 32 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 15 2018 |
Funding
This work was supported as part of the Fluid Interface Reactions Structures and Transport (FIRST) Center, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science Office of Basic Energy Sciences. This research at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. The authors wish to thank Yury Gogotsi for helpful comments on the manuscript.