In Situ Electrochemical Synthesis of MXenes without Acid/Alkali Usage in/for an Aqueous Zinc Ion Battery

Abstract

The traditional method to fabricate a MXene based energy storage device starts from etching MAX phase particles with dangerous acid/alkali etchants to MXenes, followed by device assembly. This is a multistep protocol and is not environmentally friendly. Herein, an all‐in‐one protocol is proposed to integrate synthesis and battery fabrication of MXene. By choosing a special F‐rich electrolyte, MAX V 2 AlC is directly exfoliated inside a battery and the obtained V 2 CT X MXene is in situ used to achieve an excellent battery performance. This is a one‐step process with all reactions inside the cell, avoiding any contamination to external environments. Through the lifetime, the device experiences three stages of exfoliation, electrode oxidation, and redox of V 2 O 5. While the electrode is changing, the device can always be used as a battery and the performance is continuously enhanced. The resulting aqueous zinc ion battery achieves outstanding cycling stability (4000 cycles) and rate performance (97.5 mAh g−1 at 64 A g−1), distinct from all reported aqueous MXene‐based counterparts with pseudo‐capacitive properties, and outperforming most vanadium‐based zinc ion batteries with high capacity. This work sheds light on the green synthesis of MXenes, provides an all‐in‐one protocol for MXene devices, and extends MXenes’ application in the aqueous energy storage field.