C&E News, the leading source of chemistry and research news, has published an extensive article on the current state of MXene research.
First discovered in 2011, MXenes are two-dimensional (2D) carbides and nitrides that constitute a family of 30+ members with different chemical compositions and chemical order. Since then, the research field has exploded with international interest, with many new compositions routinely discovered.
For researchers, the ease of MXene synthesis and their stability as colloidal suspensions in water and various organic solvents have made this class of material relatively easy to process and scale-up.
Additionally, it has been shown that, for many applications, MXenes outperform existing 2D materials.
According to the article, the task now is to find a path forward to establish commercial manufacturing goals.
“Now studied by researchers worldwide, MXenes may soon play a transformative role in energy storage, electronics, optics, biomedicine, and catalysis…But to make a real impact, researchers must tailor MXenes to improve their chemical stability and identify ways to manufacture them inexpensively at large scale.”
Photo credit: Di Wang/UChicago News
Among the leading experts featured in the article is UChicago Professor Dmitri Talapin, whose lab has been at the forefront of developing innovative MXene research.
“A year ago, chemistry professor Dmitri Talapin at the University of Chicago and colleagues became the first to directly grow carbide and nitride MXenes using chemical vapor deposition (Science 2023, DOI: 10.1126/science.add9204). The fast, easy method does not produce toxic by-products, and it yields MXenes in flower-shaped clusters instead of separate flakes.
In September, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Talapin almost $2 million to establish the MXenes Synthesis, Tunability, and Reactivity Center for Chemical Innovation, which brings together scientists from the University of Chicago, Drexel, the University of Pennsylvania, Purdue, and Vanderbilt University. The center aims to investigate direct synthesis routes, new properties, and applications for MXenes and, according to the center’s website, “ultimately push the frontier in this enormous chemical space.”
To learn more about the Talapin Lab’s work, see our story on their synthesis of hybrid organic-inorganic MXenes, as well as his influential paper, “Covalent surface modifications and superconductivity of two-dimensional metal carbide MXenes” published in Science in 2020.