3D Printing of NiCoP/Ti3C2 MXene Architectures for Energy Storage Devices with High Areal and Volumetric Energy Density

Designing high-performance electrodes via 3D printing for advanced energy storage is appealing but remains challenging. In normal cases, light-weight carbonaceous materials harnessing excellent electrical conductivity have served as electrode candidates. However, they struggle with undermined areal and volumetric energy density of supercapacitor devices, thereby greatly impeding the practical applications. Herein, we demonstrate the in situ coupling of NiCoP bimetallic phosphide and Ti3C2 MXene to build up heavy NCPM electrodes affording tunable mass loading throughout 3D printing technology. The resolution of prints reaches 50 μm and the thickness of device electrodes is ca. 4 mm. Thus-printed electrode possessing robust open framework synergizes favorable capacitance of NiCoP and excellent conductivity of MXene, readily achieving a high areal and volumetric capacitance of 20 F cm−2 and 137 F cm−3 even at a high mass loading of ~ 46.3 mg cm−2. Accordingly, an asymmetric supercapacitor full cell assembled with 3D-printed NCPM as a positive electrode and 3D-printed activated carbon as a negative electrode harvests remarkable areal and volumetric energy density of 0.89 mWh cm−2 and 2.2 mWh cm−3, outperforming the most of state-of-the-art carbon-based supercapacitors. The present work is anticipated to offer a viable solution toward the customized construction of multifunctional architectures via 3D printing for high-energy-density energy storage systems.