Herein we develop a chemical etching method to produce porous two‐dimensional (2D) Ti3C2Tx MXenes at room temperature in aqueous solutions. The as‐produced porous Ti3C2Tx (p‐Ti3C2Tx) have larger specific surface areas and more open structures than their pristine counterparts, and can be fabricated into flexible films with, or without, the addition of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The as‐fabricated p‐Ti3C2Tx/CNT films showed significantly improved lithium ion storage capabilities compared to pristine Ti3C2Tx based films, with a very high capacity of ≈1250 mAh g−1 at 0.1 C, excellent cycling stability, and good rate performance (330 mAh g−1 at 10 C). Using the same chemical etching method, we also made porous Nb2CTx and V2CTx MXenes. Therefore, this study provides a simple, yet effective, procedure to introduce pores into MXenes and possibly other 2D sheets that in turn, can enhance their electrochemical properties.

Conducting polymers (CPs) are attractive pseudocapacitive materials which show the highest capacitance under positive potentials in aqueous protic electrolytes. One way to expand their voltage window (thus energy density) in aqueous electrolytes is to manufacture asymmetric supercapacitors using distinctly different anodes. However, CPs lack matching pseudocapacitive anode materials that can perform well in protic electrolytes (e.g., sulfuric acid). 2D titanium carbide (Ti3C2Tx), MXene, as a universal pseudocapacitive anode material for a range of CPs, such as polyaniline, polypyrrole, and poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) deposited on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) sheets, is reported here. All‐pseudocapacitive organic–inorganic asymmetric devices with MXene cathodes and rGO–polymer anodes can operate in voltage windows up to 1.45 V in 3 m H2SO4. Most importantly, these devices show outstanding cycling performance, outperforming many reported asymmetric pseudocapacitors.

In situpolymerization of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) is achieved on the surface of 2D Ti3C2TxMXene without using any oxidant, resulting in improved lithium ion storage capability of Ti3C2Tx/poly-EDOT hybrids.

Flow electrode deionization (FCDI) is an emerging area for continuous and scalable deionization, but the electrochemical and flow properties of the flow electrode need to be improved to minimize energy consumption. Chemical oxidation of granular activated carbon (AC) was examined here to study the role of surface heteroatoms on rheology and electrochemical performance of a flow electrode (carbon slurry) for deionization processes. Moreover, it was demonstrated that higher mass densities could be used without increasing energy for pumping when using oxidized active material. High mass-loaded flow electrodes (28% carbon content) based on oxidized AC displayed similar viscosities (∼21 Pa s) to lower mass-loaded flow electrodes (20% carbon content) based on nonoxidized AC. The 40% increased mass loading (from 20% to 28%) resulted in a 25% increase in flow electrode gravimetric capacitance (from 65 to 83 F g(-1)) without sacrificing flowability (viscosity). The electrical energy required to remove ∼18% of the ions (desalt) from of the feed solution was observed to be significantly dependent on the mass loading and decreased (∼60%) from 92 ± 7 to 28 ± 2.7 J with increased mass densities from 5 to 23 wt %. It is shown that the surface chemistry of the active material in a flow electrode effects the electrical and pumping energy requirements of a FCDI system.