MXenes induced formation of Ni-MOF microbelts for high-performance supercapacitors

Ni-MOF microbelts have been successfully fabricated by using MXenes as structure-directing agents, which exhibits the excellent electrochemical performance. [Display omitted] •2D Ni-MOF microbelts are fabricated under the induced effect of MXenes.•2D Ni-MOF microbelts possess rich redox sites and ensure rapidly electrons moving.•The Ti3C2Tx MXenes can provide additional capacitances to improve the performance.•Excellent performance and good rate stability were obtained for Ti3C2Tx/Ni-MOFs. For the sake of developing new energy storage devices for satisfying the energy needs of the modern society, we herein report an innovative MXene-induced strategy to synthesize Ti3C2Tx MXenes/Ni based metal–organic framework composites (Ti3C2Tx/Ni-MOFs) for high-performance supercapacitors. The two-dimensional (2D) MXenes with oxygen-containing groups on the surface can be used as structure-directing agents to tune the Ni-MOFs into 2D microbelts. The presence of MXenes cannot only improve conductivity of the composite but also provide additional electric double layer capacitance and faradaic pseudocapacitance. The 2D Ni-MOF microbelts can offer rich activity sites for the faradaic redox reactions and shorten the ion transport path. Taking advantages of synergistic effects of Ni-MOF microbelts and Ti3C2Tx MXenes, the prepared Ti3C2Tx/Ni-MOFs electrode shows a good electrochemical performance with 1124 F g−1 at the current density of 1 A g −1 and 62% rate capability at 20 A g −1. This work can offer a new insight to design 2D MOF belts as high-performance electrode materials for supercapacitors.