Ti3C2 MXene as Additive for Low-Cost Textile Supercapacitors with Enhanced Electrical Performance

Textile-based energy storage components are paramount for establishing invisible electronic textiles that do not require conventional rigid batteries. We report a novel and scalable fabrication method for introducing MXene (Ti3C2Tx) into activated carbon (AC) supercapacitors to enhance electrochemical performance. Supercapacitors were prepared within a single layer of textile with a phase-inverted polymer membrane fabricated within the textile yarn structure to form a porous, flexible, and mechanically durable separator. MXene was introduced in two different forms: (1) A multilayer MXene powder was mechanically mixed with an AC slurry and deposited onto the textile. (2) Delaminated MXene nanosheets were spray coated onto the surface of spray coated AC electrode. With an organic electrolyte, 1M tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborate in dimethyl sulfoxide, these supercapacitors were electrochemically stable between +/- 2.6 V and demonstrated a maximum areal capacitance of 148.7 mF cm-2, an energy density of 0.921 mWh cm-2, and a power density of 1.01 mW cm-2. The addition of MXenes improved the areal capacitance and by combining both approaches an improvement of 220% was achieved compared with identical supercapacitors with standard AC electrodes. This work provides a scalable and straightforward solution processing method for introducing MXene into carbon supercapacitor electrodes enabling high-performance textile-based energy storage devices.