Shape-Adaptable 2D Titanium Carbide (MXene) Heater

Prior to the advent of the next-generation heater for wearable/on-body electronic devices, various properties are required, including conductivity, transparency, mechanical reliability, and conformability. Expansion to two-dimensional (2D) structure of metallic nanowires based on network- and mesh-type geometries has been widely exploited for realizing these heaters. However, the routes led to many drawbacks such as the low-density cross-bar linking, self-aggregation of wire, and high junction resistance. Although 2D carbon nanomaterials such as graphene and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) have shown their potentials for the purpose, CVD-grown graphene with sufficiently high conductivity was limited due to its poor processability for large-area applications, while rGO fabricated with a complex reduction process involving the use of toxic chemicals suffered from a low electrical conductivity. In this study, we demonstrate a simple and robust process, utilizing electrostatic assembling of negatively charged MXene flakes on a positively treated surface of substrate, for fabricating a metal-like 2D MXene thin film heater (TFH). Our TFH showed a high optical property (>65%), low sheet resistance (215 Ω/sq), fast electrothermal response (within dozens of seconds) with an intrinsically high electrical conductivity, and mechanical flexibility (up to 180° bending). Its capability for forming a firm and stable ionic-type interface with a counterpart surface allows us to develop a shape-adaptable and patchable thread heater (TH) that can be shaped on diverse substrates even under harsh conditions of conventional sewing or weaving processes. This work suggests that our shape-adaptable MXene heaters are potentially suitable not only for wearable devices for local heating and defrosting but also for a variety of emerging applications of soft actuators and wearable/flexible healthcare monitoring and thermotherapy.