Onkar Jaywant Kewate, Sathyanarayanan Punniyakoti
Over the past decade, 2D carbides and nitrides (MXenes) have emerged as a promising material. Majorly, MXenes have been synthesized using the most traditional and highly concentrated approach known as hydrofluoric acid (HF) etching, however, found to be more hazardous. Owing to this, recent studies have focused on preparing safe, effective, and better-yielding MXenes. Parameters during synthesis play a critical role in preparing MXenes for better quality. The MILD approach has recently become an excellent alternative for HF acid etching. In this MILD method, hydrochloric acid (HCl) and lithium fluoride (LiF) were mixed at various concentrations to produce higher-quality MXenes. In this study, various concentrations of HCl and LiF were prepared for the selective removal of the Al layer from the Ti 3 AlC 2 to synthesize the Ti 3 C 2 T x MXenes. The study of prepared Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene was conducted using various characterization instruments, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The data indicate that the optimal synthesis conditions for Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene involves etching of 0.5 g of Ti 3 AlC 2 precursor in 20 mL of 6 M HCl with 0.6 g of LiF that yielded promising results. Additionally, the XRD patterns shows the distance of interlayers has been increased successfully. However, this investigation shows the various concentrations can be used for the Ti 3 C 2 T x MXenes and can be utilized for a wide range of applications which includes energy storage, energy conversion, sensing, environmental, EMI shielding, catalysis, and biomedical.