Review—Two-Dimensional Layered Materials for Energy Storage Applications

Abstract

Rechargeable batteries are most important energy storage devices in modern society with the rapid development and increasing demand for handy electronic devices and electric vehicles. The higher surface-to-volume ratio two-dimensional (2D) materials, especially transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) and transition metal carbide/nitrite generally referred as MXene, have attracted intensive research activities due to their fascinating physical/chemical properties with extensive applications. One of the growing applications is to use these 2D materials as potential electrodes for rechargeable batteries and electrochemical capacitors. This review is an attempt to summarize the research and development of TMDCs, MXenes and their hybrid structures in energy storage systems. The strong demand for futuristic energy-storage materials and devices are exceptionally increasing owing to the request of more powerful energy storage systems with excellent power density and better cycle lifetime.1,2 For this reason, serious efforts have been undertaken to improve the electrode performance to achieve significantly improved the capacity, high rate capability and longer cycle life.3 Recently, 2D materials (TMDCs and MXene) have attracted intensive research activities due to their potential for broad applications.4-6 TMDCs represent a family of layered materials MX 2 (where M = one layer of transition metal and X = chalcogens) as shown in Figure 1a. [7][8][9] Figure 1b represents, three main structural polytypes, 1T, 2H and 3R of TMDCs. All three polytypes have layered structures with six fold trigonal prismatic coordination of transition metal atoms by the chalcogens within the TMDC layers. The term 1T, 2H and 3R represents the presence of one (1), two (2) and three (3) layers in the tetragonal (T), hexagonal (H) and rhombohedral (R) unit cell respectively. Interestingly, TMDCs own varied electronic structure, thus possess insulating (HfS 2 ), semi-conducting (MoS 2 , WS 2 ), semi-metallic (VS 2 , TiS 2 ), and superconducting (TaSe 2 , NbSe 2 ) behaviors which make them more attractive. Figure 1c, represents the exfoliation process of bulk TMDCs by lithium, sodium or potassium ion intercalation into the interlayer space and form ion-intercalated compounds, which can be further sonicated in water or organic solvents to produce single/few layer TMDC dispersions. More excitingly, the layers of TMDCs are connected with weak van der Waals interactions which enable them to serve for wide range of energy applications including energy generator, 10 energy storage 11-14 and catalysis. [15][16][17][18][19] On the other hand, MXenes 20 are produced from the MAX phase which is defined with the composition M n+1 AX n , where M = transition metal (i.e. Ti, V, Cr, Nb), A = group A element (i.e. Al, In, Sn, Si), X = carbon/nitrogen, and n = 1-3. Careful inscription of the group-A element from the MAX phase resulting in the production of MXene 20-24 as shown in Figures 1d-1e. One of the most studied applications of these 2D materials is to use t...

MXene-based materials for electrochemical energy storage

“…Several reviews have summarized the preparation, properties and potential applications of MXene [13][14][15][16]37,38] . Nevertheless, the investigations on MXene for electrochemical energy storage are rapidly proceeding and important breakthroughs have emerged very recently.…”

Theoretical Study of Aluminum Hydroxide as a Hydrogen-Bonded Layered Material

“…The kinds of atoms constituting heterostructures or multi-layered materials also affect the electronic band structures and optical properties. In addition to fundamental research, 2D single-layered or multi-layered materials have been studied due to their potential applications, for example, in energy storage [ 15 , 16 ], gas adsorption, catalysis [ 17 ], and energy conversion [ 16 ]. Most of the above-mentioned and recently reported layered materials have a common feature that they have the van der Waals (vdW) interaction as an interlayer binding mechanism.…”

Beyond Graphene Anode Materials for Emerging Metal Ion Batteries and Supercapacitors

“…One of the most important aspects of 2D materials is that their interlayer spacing can be manipulated by pre-intercalating guest species (e.g., metal ions, polymers etc.) inside their layers during the fabrication process [ 38 , 39 ]. For example, in TMDs, the rather large interlayer spacing (e.g., 0.65 nm for MoS 2 ) provides a rather conducive environment for accommodating large-sized alkali metal ions such as Na + , K + [ 5 ].…”