Chemists cram record nine metals into trendy 2D material

"The materials are so complex that, at this point, it's impossible to simulate them with computer models, says Max Hamedi, a physicist at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Scientists will need to test their properties in the laboratory, he adds - a tantalizing prospect. "Maybe we will get some properties that are very surprising and that we couldn't predict.""

"The newly expanded family of materials, called MXenes (pronounced 'max-eens'), has previously caused a stir because their high electrical conductivity and other characteristics suggest that they might one day be used in technologies such as next-generation batteries and coatings that protect against electromagnetic interference. Not only that, these materials can be dispersed in water, so they can be sprayed or painted onto surfaces."

"The first MXene ever synthesized, a 2D sheet of titanium carbide, was reported in 2011 by a team co-led by Yury Gogotsi, a nanomaterials scientist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Unlike the iconic 2D material graphene, which is a single layer of carbon atoms, MXenes contain several layers of metal and carbon or nitrogen atoms. In the case of titanium carbide, for instance, there are two 'bread' layers of titanium atoms that sandwich a sheet of carbon."

Chemists doubled the number of known MXenes and created a version containing nine different metals, expanding the configurational space of 2D materials. MXenes are layered metal–carbon/nitrogen compounds with high electrical conductivity, dispersibility in water, and potential uses in batteries and electromagnetic-interference coatings. The materials are too complex for current computer simulation, necessitating laboratory testing to uncover unexpected properties. Metal placement within MXene layers depends on atomic size and electron affinity, limiting precise control during synthesis. The original MXene, a titanium carbide 2D sheet, was first synthesized in 2011 and inspired further exploration.

Read at Nature