Abstract
Understanding of structural, electrical, and gravimetric peculiarities of water vapor interaction with ion-intercalated MXenes led to design of a multimodal humidity sensor. Neutron scattering coupled to molecular dynamics and ab initio calculations showed that a small amount of hydration results in a significant increase in the spacing between MXene layers in the presence of K and Mg intercalants between the layers. Films of K- and Mg-intercalated MXenes exhibited relative humidity (RH) detection thresholds of ∼0.8% RH and showed monotonic RH response in the 0-85% RH range. We found that MXene gravimetric response to water is 10 times faster than their electrical response, suggesting that H2O-induced swelling/contraction of channels between MXene sheets results in trapping of H2O molecules that act as charge-depleting dopants. The results demonstrate the use of MXenes as humidity sensors and infer potential impact of water on structural and electrical performance of MXene-based devices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 11118-11126 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | ACS Nano |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 28 2017 |
Funding
*E-mail: [email protected]. *E-mail: [email protected]. ORCID Eric S. Muckley: 0000-0001-7114-5424 Michael Naguib: 0000-0002-4952-9023 Hsiu-Wen Wang: 0000-0002-2802-4122 Lukas Vlcek: 0000-0003-4782-7702 Naresh C. Osti: 0000-0002-0213-2299 Xiahan Sang: 0000-0002-2861-6814 Eugene Mamontov: 0000-0002-5684-2675 Katharine L. Page: 0000-0002-9071-3383 Jagjit Nanda: 0000-0002-6875-0057 Author Contributions ○E.S.M. and M.N. contributed equally. Notes This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). The authors declare no competing financial interest. Materials synthesis, characterization and calculations were 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. Electrical, gravimetric and thermogravimetric responses of MXene films were measured at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. Research at the NOMAD beamline at ORNLs Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Access to the HFBS was provided by the Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering, a partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation under Agreement No. DMR-1508249. Certain commercial material suppliers are identified in this paper to foster understanding. Such identification does not imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does it imply that the materials or equipment identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose.
Keywords
- MXene
- humidity sensor
- intercalation
- neutron scattering
- pillaring
- quartz crystal microbalance