Enhancing the conductivity, stability and flexibility of Ti3C2Tx MXenes by regulating etching conditions

Two-dimensional transition metal carbides or/and nitrides (MXenes) exhibit great development prospects in energy storage, catalysis, sensing and other fields due to their good properties. However, MXenes obtained from different etching conditions show great discrepancy on their electrical and mechanical properties, which will affect their applications to a certain degree. Unfortunately, few reports have systematically investigated such discrepancy and the underlying mechanism. Herein, three etchants and corresponding subsequent operations were used to synthesize three different Ti3C2Tx (MXene) samples. The difference in chemical components, morphology and surface terminations of Ti3C2Tx and their influences on the conductivity, stability and flexibility were comprehensively analyzed. The underlying mechanism has been investigated simultaneously. Based on this, favorable annealing treatments and storage conditions are also proposed to optimize the properties of Ti3C2Tx, which is believed of great meaning to the practical applications of Ti3C2Tx

Interface-Controlled Conductive Fibers for Wearable Strain Sensors and Stretchable Conducting Wires

As an important subfield of flexible electronics, conductive fibers have been an active area of research. The interfacial interaction between nanostructured conductive materials with elastic substrates plays a vital role in the electromechanical performance of conductive fibers. However, the underlying mechanism has seldom been investigated. Here, we propose a fabricating strategy for a silver nanowire (Ag NW)/polyurethane composite fiber with a sheath-core architecture. The interfacial bonding layer is regulated, and its influence on the performance of conductive fibers is investigated, based on which an interfacial interaction model is proposed. The model underlines the significance of the embedding depth of the Ag NW network. Both supersensitive (gauge factor up to 9557) and ultrastable (negligible conductance degradation below the strain of 150%) conductive fibers are obtained via interface regulating, exhibiting great potential in the applications of wearable sensors and stretchable conducting connections