Introduce 1D rGO nanoribbons as spacers between 2D MXene for high performance electrode of supercapacitor

Abstract

Two-dimension (2D) transition metal carbide Ti3C2TX (MXene) possesses good electrical conductivity, high specific surface areas and metal oxide-like surfaces, which make it ideal for application in supercapacitors with both high energy density and power density. However, similar to other 2D materials, the issue of self-stacking leads to narrower ion transport channels, along with a drastic reduction of active sites, severe limiting the performance of MXene-based electrodes. To address this problem, this work proposes to introduce one-dimension (1D) reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanoribbons as spacers between MXene nanosheets to construct composite structure for inhibiting the self-stacking. As expected, thanks to the steric effect and high aspect ratio of rGO nanoribbons, the fabricated MXene/rGO hybrid electrode with addition of 5 wt% graphene oxide (GO) exhibits a greatly improved specific capacitance (397.4 F g−1 at 5 mV s−1) and an unparalleled rate capability (with a capacitance retention of 52.9% at 2000 mV s−1). This work significantly shed light to develop MXene-based materials for advanced energy storage devices.