Investigating suitable medium for the long-duration storage of Ti2CTx MXene

Recently, 2D material MXene gained a significant attention due to its unique properties like chemical diversity, hydrophilicity, 2D morphology, metallic conductivity, etc. Despite the promising properties of MXenes, these materials are not gaining momentum in various applications because of their poor chemical or oxidation stability. Earlier reports stated that organic solvents with low temperature storage could prevent the oxidation of Ti3C2Tx MXene flakes due to less number of dissolved oxygen molecules in the solvents. Due to the lack of a suitable storage media, Ti2CTx MXene is still receiving less attention despite having equivalent physio-chemical properties to Ti3C2Tx. To address this issue, this paper reports a suitable medium for preventing or delaying the degradation or oxidation of Ti2CTx MXene. Herein, Ti2CTx MXene was dispersed in different solvents for a duration of 3 months at ambient (room temperature) and freezing conditions (−20 °C and −80 °C) and characterized thereafter using XRD, Raman, SEM, TEM and XPS techniques. The results are suggested that polar solvents with a high surface tension, high viscosity, high boiling point, and high dielectric constant and in case of “Dry MXene”, keep it in a vacuum or inert atmosphere, will be suitable for long duration storage of Ti2CTx MXene at room temperature. However, it is not the best option for storing the material for a long duration of time. Finally, we have successfully find out the suitable storage medium to avoid the degradation and oxidation of Ti2CTx MXene for a long period of time and it is recommended that it should be dispersed in polar solvents and stored in a frozen condition like − 20 °C temperature or below (−80 °C). In case of “Dry MXene”, the storage condition should be at subzero temperature (−20 °C), and/or freezing conditions should be maintained to avoid degradation as well as oxidation.