MXene Ti₃C₂: An Effective 2D Light-to-Heat Conversion Material

TLDR

MXene is a new series of 2D materials that is increasingly applied in catalysis, supercapacitors, molecular separation, and electromagnetic wave shielding. This study aims to determine the internal light‑to‑heat conversion efficiency of various nanomaterials using a carefully designed aqueous droplet light‑heating system. The authors employ the droplet system together with a rigorous mathematical procedure to precisely quantify the conversion efficiency. MXene Ti₃C₂ achieved a perfect 100 % internal light‑to‑heat conversion and, when fabricated into a self‑floating thin membrane with a heat barrier, delivered an 84 % light‑to‑water evaporation efficiency under one‑sun irradiation, demonstrating its promise as a high‑performance photothermal material.

Abstract

MXene, a new series of 2D material, has been steadily advancing its applications to a variety of fields, such as catalysis, supercapacitor, molecular separation, electromagnetic wave interference shielding. This work reports a carefully designed aqueous droplet light heating system along with a thorough mathematical procedure, which combined leads to a precise determination of internal light-to-heat conversion efficiency of a variety of nanomaterials. The internal light-to-heat conversion efficiency of MXene, more specifically Ti3C2, was measured to be 100%, indicating a perfect energy conversion. Furthermore, a self-floating MXene thin membrane was prepared by simple vacuum filtration and the membrane, in the presence of a rationally chosen heat barrier, produced a light-to-water-evaporation efficiency of 84% under one sun irradiation, which is among the state of art energy efficiency for similar photothermal evaporation system. The outstanding internal light-to-heat conversion efficiency and great light-to-water evaporation efficiency reported in this work suggest that MXene is a very promising light-to-heat conversion material and thus deserves more research attention toward practical applications.