MXene Ti₃C₂: An Effective 2D Light-to-Heat Conversion Material

Abstract

MXene, a new series of 2D material, has been steadily advancing its applications to a variety of fields, such as catalysis, supercapacitor, molecular separation, electromagnetic wave interference shielding. This work reports a carefully designed aqueous droplet light heating system along with a thorough mathematical procedure, which combined leads to a precise determination of internal light-to-heat conversion efficiency of a variety of nanomaterials. The internal light-to-heat conversion efficiency of MXene, more specifically TiC, was measured to be 100%, indicating a perfect energy conversion. Furthermore, a self-floating MXene thin membrane was prepared by simple vacuum filtration and the membrane, in the presence of a rationally chosen heat barrier, produced a light-to-water-evaporation efficiency of 84% under one sun irradiation, which is among the state of art energy efficiency for similar photothermal evaporation system. The outstanding internal light-to-heat conversion efficiency and great light-to-water evaporation efficiency reported in this work suggest that MXene is a very promising light-to-heat conversion material and thus deserves more research attention toward practical applications.

Ti3C2Tx (MXene)‐Silicon Heterojunction for Efficient Photovoltaic Cells

“…It can be seen from Figure 2c-e that the typical lateral size of the flakes ranges from 1 to 3 µm with a thickness of ≈1.64 nm, which is consistent with the values reported in the literature. [30,31] Three typical Ti 3 C 2 T x peaks at wavelengths of 264, 316, and 741 nm were observed in UV-vis spectrum, as shown in Figure 2f. [5,18] The selective removal of the aluminum layer was confirmed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) by the complete absence of Ti 3 AlC 2 peaks (for instance, (002) at 11.06°) and the appearance of Ti 3 C 2 T x peaks (such as (002) at 7.65°) in the XRD pattern after the MILD reaction, which corresponds to an increase in d-spacing from 9.28 to 13.42 Å for (002) plane and indicated the successful exfoliation ( Figure 2g).…”

A Robust CuCr2O4/SiO2 Composite Photothermal Material with Underwater Black Property and Extremely High Thermal Stability for Solar‐Driven Water Evaporation

“…As seen, the composite still possesses a nonwoven fibrous membrane morphology ( Figure 2a) and some CuCr 2 O 4 particles are wrapping and binding quartz glass fibers together ( Figure 2b). [8] Adv. With the QGF matrix gone, clear tunnel structures of CuCr 2 O 4 particle aggregates can then be clearly viewed by SEM (Figure 2c).…”

“…[3] Therefore, it is attractive and economical especially for small sized water plants and can be made into point-of-use potable water production apparatus. [4] Various black materials with strong light absorbance in the solar spectrum range are intensively investigated, including carbon based materials, [4e,5] metal nanoparticles, [4c,6] conjugated polymers, [7] MXene, [8] and black metal oxides. [4] Various black materials with strong light absorbance in the solar spectrum range are intensively investigated, including carbon based materials, [4e,5] metal nanoparticles, [4c,6] conjugated polymers, [7] MXene, [8] and black metal oxides.…”

Harnessing Solar‐Driven Photothermal Effect toward the Water–Energy Nexus

“…However, most wide-bandgap semiconductors exhibit relatively narrow absorption wavelength. Recently, owing to the fast development of nanotechnology, some emerging 2D semiconductors materials, e.g., MoS 2 , [54,55] MXene, [56] and black phosphorus, [57,58] are similarly utilized as photothermal materials because of their large surface area and strong light absorption ability. [46] To extend its absorption wavelength, black TiO x nanoparticle was successfully constructed through magnesium (Mg) reduction of white P25 TiO 2 nanocrystals to reduce its bandgap.…”