Layered Solids Group (LSG)

Congratulations to Professor Barsoum! He has been awarded a three-year Chair of Excellence at the Neel Institute in Grenoble (France) to investigate the electronic properties of MXenes.

Congratulations to Dr. Joseph Halim for a successful PhD defense!

Congratulations to Dr.Michael Naguib, former PhD student of the MAX/MXene research group, for being in Drexel Magazine’s 2016 list of “40 under 40” (see below)! Since his PhD research on the discovery of MXenes, a novel family of two-dimensional transition metal carbides/carbonitrides, Dr.Naguib continued to study these materials as Wigner Fellow at Oak Ridge National Lab.

Drexel Magazine’s “40 under 40”: http://drexelmagazine.org/2016/03/2016-forty-under-forty/

Two-dimensional materials have been increasingly researched in a effort to discover new compounds and the exotic properties engendered by their sheet-like structure. While the MXenes have already proven to be a family of 2D materials with a rich compositional variability, Dr.Babak Anasori takes surface engineering of the MXenes even further. His research demonstrates the ability to make MXenes with one metal on the surface and another metal in the core of the MXene sheet. This is an invaluable method to control surface chemistry that can be useful to tune electronic, mechanical, and chemical properties for a given application. Watch the video below to learn more!

Research by Dr.Michel Barsoum and students turn sheds new light about how the ancient pyramids of Giza were built.  Traditional theories state that the Great Pyramids of Giza were built because of enormous amounts of manual labor to haul large chunks of quarried stone across the desert and up ramps. To many researchers, this theory seems not only beyond imagination but also beyond plausibility. Some researchers have rejected the traditional theory all together and instead postulate that the stones making up the pyramids were cast using an early form of cement known as geopolymer.

However, research by Dr.Michel Barsoum and students suggests both theories are correct to some degree. Read more about these theories, concrete and more in the article featured on Medium.

Nanolaminated carbon/sulfur materials demonstrate good performance as cathode materials in lithium-sulfur rechargeable batteries. These nanolaminates were synthesized from the MAX phase titanium sulfur carbide by electrochemically etching the titanium atoms. The work was featured in an article by Clean Technica and a recent publication in Angewendte Chemie.

Congratulations to PhD student Michael Ghidiu for his work in developing MXene “clays”, which has appeared on the journal Nature titled as “Conductive two-dimensional titanium carbide ‘clay’ with high volumetric capacitance”. This work paves the way for safer processing of MXenes, which have already been demonstrated to have applications as fast and long lasting energy storage devices. The short video below explains how the MXenes are made!