Thermal and corrosion behavior of Ti₃C₂/Copper composites

In virtue of its excellent performance and abundant surface terminations, MXenes, a newly emerged 2D materials, greatly exhibit promising applications in many fields of energy storage and electromagnetic shielding. Ti₃C₂, a member of MXenes, is widely investigated in recent years. However, lack for attention in thermal property and corrosion behavior. Here, Copper matrix composites were prepared by Spark Plasma Sintering, in which TiC and few-layer Ti₃C₂ nanosheets as filler. The results exhibit corrosion resistance of the Ti₃C₂/Cu composites were improved compared to TiC/Cu composites, benefiting from outstanding electrical conductivity and easily oxidized property of Ti₃C₂. However, the thermal conductivity of Ti₃C₂/Cu composite with the content of 2 wt% Ti₃C₂ improves about 15% compared to TiC/Cu composites with same content, resulting from the low inherent thermal conductivity of filler and lattice mismatch between copper and filler. Moreover, the electrical resistance of Ti₃C₂/Cu composites increases about 100% with the content of 2 wt% Ti₃C₂ at interfacial contact resistance measurement compared with pure Cu. Meanwhile, the anti-corrosion performance of the Ti₃C₂/Cu composites was improved over pure Cu. This work will broaden appliance field of Ti₃C₂ and lay the foundation for the future research.