Issue 2, 2025

Mesoporous gold decorated MXene (Ti3C2Tx) flexible composite films for photo-enhanced solid-state micro-supercapacitors

Abstract

Powerful, flexible, and small energy storage devices are becoming increasingly important. As a typical two-dimensional titanium carbide, the Ti3C2Tx MXene film has been widely used as an electrode material for flexible energy storage devices due to its ultra-high electrical conductivity, superior capacitance, and excellent mechanical flexibility. In this work, we incorporate mesoporous gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) with abundant interior void spaces into flexible Ti3C2Tx MXene films to enhance conductivity, provide more electroactive sites, and shorten ion diffusion paths. The MXene composite film with 5 wt% mesoporous Au NPs (M/A-0.05) has gravimetric capacitances up to 332 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1, representing a 59% increase over the pure MXene film. Flexible symmetric solid-state micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) in PVA/H2SO4 electrolyte are fabricated with this MXene composite film, which shows a wider voltage window (0–1.2 V) compared to aqueous symmetric supercapacitors in 3 M H2SO4 electrolyte (0–0.6 V). The MSCs have a large surface area, enabling the MXene composite film with mesoporous Au NPs to be efficiently excited with light. Electromagnetic (EM) simulations performed on mesoporous Au NPs in a high refractive index material like Ti3C2 MXene show that light can excite broadband multipolar plasmon resonances that should contribute indirectly to photocurrent by generating heat in the interstitial space between MXene flakes. Thus, the photo-illuminated MSC device based on M/A-0.05 generates ∼2X photocurrent response compared to the MSC device based on the pure MXene film and has a capacitance 6.2% higher than under dark conditions. This work explains how mesoporous Au NPs can augment and improve the properties of MXene-based composite film electrodes that are capable of both harvesting and storing energy for photo-enhanced supercapacitors.

Graphical abstract: Mesoporous gold decorated MXene (Ti3C2Tx) flexible composite films for photo-enhanced solid-state micro-supercapacitors

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 Aug 2024
Accepted
19 Nov 2024
First published
06 Dec 2024

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2025,13, 1330-1342

Mesoporous gold decorated MXene (Ti3C2Tx) flexible composite films for photo-enhanced solid-state micro-supercapacitors

Y. Luo, W. Que, A. S. Nugraha, Y. Kang, Y. Tang, Z. Wu, J. Henzie and Y. Yamauchi, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2025, 13, 1330 DOI: 10.1039/D4TA06043A

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