Synthesis and lithium ion storage performance of two-dimensional V4C3 MXene

Two-dimensional MXenes (such as Ti 2 C, V 2 C, Nb 2 C, Ti 3 C 2 , and Nb 4 C 3 ) have shown enormous potential in lithium ion storage, and the exploration of new and/or high- performance MXene-based lithium ion storage materials is an active field. This present work demonstrates the synthesis of two-dimensional vanadium carbide V 4 C 3 MXene by selectively etching Al layers from V 4 AlC 3 in hydrofluoric acid at 55 °C. Large specific surface (∼52.1 m 2  g −1 ) and interlayer spacing (∼0.466 nm) can be obtained in V 4 C 3 MXene via adding sufficient ball-milling treatment on precursor V 4 AlC 3 , which is benefit for lithium ion storage. As an anode material for lithium ion batteries, it shows high capacity as well as good rate capability and cycling performance. More specifically, V 4 C 3 delivers a high specific capacity of 225 mAh g −1 after 300 charge/discharge cycles at a current density of 0.1 A g −1 , and 125 mAh g −1 at 1 A g −1 . This work provides another potential MXene-based lithium ion storage material and is expected to inspire more explorations of high-performance MXene-based electrode materials for lithium ion batteries and capacitors.