Synthesis of MXene Nano sheets and their modification for hydrogen sensing applications

In 2011 MXenewas discovered and due to their 2-D structure with excellent metallic like conductivity and chemical active surface properties these are useful for gas sensing application. There are several routes, viz. acidic etching and chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which have been use to fabricated 2D MXene. Generally, 2-D MXenenanosheet is fabricated by selective etching thelayersfrom the MAX phases with toxic fluorine-based acids. In the present work, MXenenanosheets were prepared in a two-steps,in which, firstly MAX phase (Ti3AlC2) percussor was synthesized thenin next stepMXene(Ti3C2) nanosheets was synthesized by selective etching of Al layer using hydrofluoric (HF) acid, for long hours of stirring. The hydrogen sensing behaviour was detected by monitoring the change in resistance withthe time after hydrogen gas exposure using computer control indigenously developed hydrogen gas storage and sensing setup. In results we found that the fabricated sensor shows the response of ∼1.24 towards hydrogen gasat room temperature. The structural order and surface characteristic properties of fabricated MXene samples have also been examined by XRD, Raman and SEM techniques.