Electromagnetic shielding behavior of heat-treated Ti3C2TX MXene accompanied by structural and phase changes

Ti3C2TX MXenes have great application prospects in the electromagnetic shielding field owing to their unique accordion structure and excellent electrical conductivity. However, understanding the correlation between their thermal stability and electromagnetic shielding performance is still lacking. Additionally, owing to the complex etching environment, some termination groups are present on the surface of MXenes, significantly affecting their thermal and electromagnetic performance. Here, to solve these problems, a heat treatment process was used. In this study, the effect of heat treatment on the removal of these surface adsorption groups was evaluated. Moreover, the evolution of structure, phase, and electromagnetic shielding properties of MXenes with the change in heat treatment temperature was also studied in detail. After heat treatment at 1100 °C, the phase of MXenes changed. Multilayer-TiC, a derivative of MXenes, still exhibited excellent shielding performance, which can be attributed to the elimination of surface end groups, the maintenance of multiple structure, and the increase in content about amorphous C. The total and absorbing shielding effectiveness reached 76.1 dB and 61.3 dB, respectively. Its conductivity was 265 S/m. This study is valuable in studying application prospects of Ti3C2TX MXene in high temperature fields, such as the field of electromagnetic shielding.