Influence of binder and solvents on the electrochemical performance of screen-printed MXene electrodes.

The present study is concerned with the use of binders and solvents in fabricating MXene electrodes, which play a vital role in influencing supercapacitive performance. The electrodes were prepared by screen printing MXene on FSSM (flexible stainless steel mesh) substrate, which is a straightforward, efficient, and cost-effective approach. The influence of binder and solvent on the electrochemical performance was investigated by fabricating them with and without using a binder i.e only organic solvents ethanol and n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP). The electrode with the binder is abbreviated as MX-B@FSSM and was prepared with the composition of acetylene black conducting material, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer binder, and MXene (MX) as active material. While electrodes without binder were prepared by a slurry of MXene using organic solvent ethanol and n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and are abbreviated as MX-E@FSSM and MX-N@FSSM, respectively. The electrochemical performance of these MX-B@FSSM, MX-E@FSSM and MX-N@FSSM electrodes was examined by cyclic voltammetry, chronopotentiometry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The influence of the binder altered the electrochemical performance. The samples MX-B@FSSM, MX-E@FSSM, and MX-N@FSSM show the specific capacitance of 35.60, 490.80, and 339.6 F g-1, respectively at 2 mA cm-2 current density. The MX-E@FSSM electrode exhibited marginally the best electrochemical performance. Furthermore, MnO2/MXene//MX-E asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) device exhibits 252 F g-1 specific capacitance at 35.2 W h kg-1 energy density demonstrating a promising electrode for the supercapacitor. .