Malleable, printable, bondable, and highly conductive MXene/liquid metal plasticine with improved wettability

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 6138 - 12
• Main Authors: Jiang, Haojie, Yuan, Bin, Guo, Hongtao, Pan, Fei, Meng, Fanmao, Wu, Yongpeng, Wang, Xiao, Ruan, Lingyang, Zheng, Shuhuai, Yang, Yang, Xiu, Zheng, Li, Lixin, Wu, Changsheng, Gong, Yongqing, Yang, Menghao, Lu, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.07.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 119/118; 140/146; 147/135; 147/143; 147/3; 639/301; 639/925; Carbon; Dimensional stability; Electromagnetic interference; Electromagnetic shielding; Engineering; Fillers; Free form; Graphene; Humanities and Social Sciences; Intermetallic compounds; Liquid metals; Manufacturing; Materials science; Metals; multidisciplinary; MXenes; Paving; Plasticine; Rheological properties; Rheology; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Solvents; Wettability
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-50541-4

Integration of functional fillers into liquid metals (LM) induces rheology modification, enabling the free-form shaping of LM at the micrometer scale. However, integrating non-chemically modified low-dimensional materials with LM to form stable and uniform dispersions remain a great challenge. Herein, we propose a solvent-assisted dispersion (SAD) method that utilizes the fragmentation and reintegration of LM in volatile solvents to engulf and disperse fillers. This method successfully integrates MXene uniformly into LM, achieving better internal connectivity than the conventional dry powder mixing (DPM) method. Consequently, the MXene/LM (MLM) coating exhibits high electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performance (105 dB at 20 μm, which is 1.6 times that of coatings prepared by DPM). Moreover, the rheological characteristic of MLM render it malleable and facilitates direct printing and adaptation to diverse structures. This study offers a convenient method for assembling LM with low-dimensional materials, paving the way for the development of multifunctional soft devices. This work offers a convenient method (solvent-assisted dispersion) for assembling liquid metals with MXene and other low-dimensional materials, paving a path for the development of multifunctional soft devices.