Ti₃C₂ MXene-Coated Germanium Nanoparticles on Nickel Foam for Binder-Free Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes.

Authors

Junaid Aslam, Muhammad Arif Khan, Weiwei Sun, Chao Yang

Published in

Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland). Volume 16. Issue 15. Aug 06, 2026. Epub Aug 06, 2026.

Abstract

Germanium (Ge) is a promising high-capacity anode material for lithium-ion batteries; however, its practical application remains limited by substantial volume variation, unstable interfacial reactions, and rapid capacity degradation during repeated lithiation/delithiation. In this work, a binder-free Ge/C/MXene@NF hybrid electrode was developed through a sequential fabrication process, where Ge nanoparticles were immobilized within a PVP-derived carbon matrix supported on a three-dimensional nickel-foam scaffold and subsequently integrated with a Ti₃C₂T_x MXene conductive network to construct a hierarchical Ge/C/MXene hybrid architecture. The nickel foam provides a continuous current-collecting framework and mechanical support, while the MXene network improves electrical connectivity, electrolyte accessibility, and interfacial charge-transfer kinetics. Structural and compositional analyses further indicate the presence of PVP-derived carbon and a possible minor NiGe interfacial phase formed during annealing. Comparison with Ge@NF and the individual component electrodes provides insight into the respective contributions of MXene, Ge, and the PVP-derived carbon framework to the electrochemical behaviour of the composite electrode. Using the total deposited active-material mass as the normalisation basis, the MXene@Ge@NF electrode retains a reversible specific capacity of 789.8 mAh g^-1 after 100 cycles at an effective current density of 76.2 mA g^-1. The observed electrochemical behaviour originates from the integrated contributions of Ge nanoparticles, the PVP-derived carbon matrix, the conductive Ti₃C₂T_x MXene network, the three-dimensional nickel-foam scaffold, and possible Ni-Ge interfacial interactions. Rather than representing a Ge-dominated electrode, this architecture demonstrates the advantages of integrating multiple functional components within a binder-free Ge/C/MXene hybrid architecture.

PMID:
42584360
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 12 Aug 2026.

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