One-pot hydrothermal synthesis of MoO3/TiO2/2D layered Ti3C2Tx ternary composites to enhance the electrochemical properties

Abstract

A ternary MoO3/TiO2/Ti3C2Tx composite was successfully prepared through in-situ oxidation of Ti3C2Tx and loading of MoO3 nanoparticles by one-pot hydrothermal method. The obtained ternary composite was characterized by X-ray diffraction, XPS, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It could be clearly found that the TiO2 nanoparticles and MoO3 nanoparticles were well dispersed on the Ti3C2Tx, larger TiO2 nanoparticles were attached on the edges of Ti3C2Tx layers and smaller MoO3 nanoparticles were dispersed between Ti3C2Tx layers. The nanoparticles extremely increase specific surface area of MoO3/TiO2/Ti3C2Tx composite to 33.6 m2 g−1, and 9.8 m2 g−1 for as-prepared Ti3C2Tx powder. Electrochemical properties testing results showed a specific capacitance of 162 F g−1 at a scan rate of 2 mV s−1 in the potential range from −1 V to −0.3 V with 1 mol L−1 KOH as electrolyte during the cyclic voltammetry (CV) cycles, which is superior to the performance of pure 2D layered Ti3C2Tx. Also, the as-prepared ternary composites exhibited good specific capacitance retention of 91% after 8000 cycles. It is confirmed that the three components of ternary composites could make the integrated electrochemical behavior display and lead to a resulting capacitor with enhanced performance. The significant enhancement in electrochemical performance of the ternary composites can be attributed to the synergistic effect and cooperation of TiO2 and MoO3 nanoparticles dispersed on the Ti3C2Tx sheets.