A generalized and scalable self-assembly method of 2D carbides to metal powders

Nanomaterial reinforced metal matrix composites can serve to enable multifunctional nanocomposites. Particularly, 2D materials, with their high aspect ratio and ideal mechanical and electrical properties, promise to enable multifunctional composites beyond typical ceramic or carbon reinforcement materials. However, creating a homogenous distribution of the reinforcement nanomaterial in the matrix is challenging. Additionally, it is noted that the mixed metal nanocomposite powders still are not entirely ready for additive manufacturing, due to a lack of ideal morphology control, controllable additive contents, and scalability. In this work, we present the solution-based electrostatic self-assembly of negatively charged 2D carbides (MXenes) to positively charged metal powders using acidic protonation of metal powders. Further, we demonstrate the tunable conformal wrapping of 2D Ti₃C₂T_x MXene on the metal powders, the generalizability of this approach to multiple metal compositions, stainless steel, Ti, Nb, and Al powders, and the scalability of this method.