Effect of Ti3AlC2 precursor on the electrochemical properties of the resulting MXene Ti3C2 for Li-ion batteries

The presented work compared the etching behavior between combustion synthesized Ti 3 AlC 2 (SHS-Ti 3 AlC 2 ) and pressureless synthesized Ti 3 AlC 2 (PLS-Ti 3 AlC 2 ). Because the former had a more compact structure, it was harder to be etched than PLS-Ti 3 AlC 2 under the same conditions. When served as anode material for Li-ion batteries, SHS-Ti 3 C 2 showed much lower capacity than PLS-Ti 3 C 2 at 1 C (52.7 and 87.4 mAh g −1 , respectively) due to the smaller d -spacing. Furthermore, Potentiostatic Intermittent Titration Technique (PITT) was used to determine the Li-ion chemical diffusion coefficient ( D Li + ) of Ti 3 C 2 in the range of 10 −10 − 10 −9 cm 2 s −1 , indicating that Ti 3 C 2 could exhibit an excellent diffusion mobility for Li-ion.