Taking MXenes from the lab to commercial products

Abstract Often described as “wonder materials,” two-dimensional (2D) materials have been touted as the next generation solution to many of the world’s problems, from energy storage to environmental remediation. However, despite the expectations and effort that the scientific community has placed on them, there are few examples of 2D materials moving from the laboratory to industrial use. The primary reason that most 2D materials are produced in very small quantities, are expensive or have scalability issues – it is infeasible to market materials for bulk applications when production batches are limited to subgram quantities. MXenes, the potentially largest class of 2D materials, comprised of transition metal carbides, nitrides, and carbonitrides, have extraordinary useful properties leading to potential applications in communication, energy technology, and several other fields. They are produced using a scalable selective etching approach, allowing them the potential to transition from laboratory use to wider industrial production. To accomplish this, however, significant work still needs conducted regarding the synthesis-structure-property relationship, on more diverse MXene structures and compositions, and optimization of processing. It is vital that the wider scientific community considers the feasibility of applied research prior to conducting it – if there is no potential for the application-focused work to be used, whether due to safety, material abundance, or simply cost – what benefit is gained?