MXene/AC Composite Membranes as an Electrode Material for Flexible Supercapacitors with Excellent Properties

In recent years, activated carbon materials have been widely used as electrode materials in supercapacitors due to their excellent electrical conductivity, huge specific surface area and chemical stability. A sugarcane tip-based nitrogen-doped activated carbon was prepared by using sugarcane tips as raw material, KOH as an activator and urea as a nitrogen dopant under a simultaneous doping process. The prepared activated carbon has a multilayer pore structure, and the N doping leads to the formation of nitrogen-containing functional groups on the surface of the activated carbon. The sample has a reasonable pore size distribution, a suitable specific surface area and graphitization when the urea doping ratio is 1:2 (NACST-2). Here, MXene/AC composite film materials were rationally designed and successfully synthesized by using nitrogen-doped activated carbon from sugarcane tips as an intercalator to prevent MXene buildingup, broadening ion transport channels and increasing active site utilization, what’s more, the activated carbon can provide additional specific capacitance to the films and improve the overall specific capacitance. The prepared MXene/AC-5% membrane electrode has the best electrochemical performance: the specific capacitance value is 272.7 F/g at a current density of 0.5 A/g.