Highly stable MXene/g-PPy@sulfonated cellulose composite electrodes for flexible supercapacitors

Traditional two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides (MXene) have gained much academic concern due to their excellent physicochemical properties, but their susceptibility to self-stacking leads to poor cyclic stability. In this paper, an MXene-based electrode active material was successfully prepared. The generated modified PPy (g-PPy) increases the active site, increases the accessibility of ions, and can give full play to the pseudocapacitance. By the combination of modified PPy (g-PPy) nanoparticles with pseudocapacitive behavior polymerized in situ on sulfonated cellulose (SC) and MXene , not only the electrochemical performance was improved by exploiting the synergy between different electrode materials and different energy storage mechanisms, but also the MXene as a skeleton limited the volume expansion and contraction of PPy during charge/discharge cycles and the g-PPy and SC composites (g-PPy@SC) as a spacer supported the MXene layer, resulting in much higher cycle stability. Cycle stability of 98.4 % even after 10,000 cycle tests. In addition, a symmetric supercapacitor assembled from this electrode material maintains a stability of 84.4 % under 10,000 cycles at a low temperature of −40 °C. Therefore, this study provides a feasible method for the preparation of MXene-based electrodes with high cycling stability.