Printing of MXene-based materials and the applications: a state-of-the-art review

MXene, as a family of novel two-dimensional materials, has injected new blood into the nanomaterials community, and revealed great promise in the applications of various fields attributing to their extraordinary properties. To realize the application potential of MXene, suitable nano-manufacturing techniques are highly expected. Traditional constructing techniques (coating, extrusion and deposition) are failing to offer accurate control on material interface and roughness, which generally leads to inferior devices performance. Well-developed printing processes are powerful tools to precisely manufacture multiscale, multimaterials and multifunctional devices, and equip them with satisfied properties, providing new opportunities for the manufacturing of MXene. There have been increasing research efforts being spent to combine the printing methods with MXene-based materials. Nevertheless, lots of difficulties and limitations still exist. In this paper, we provide a state-of-the-art review on the recent research progress around the printing of MXene-based materials, focusing on three parts, i.e. the formation of printable inks, current mainstream printing methods and the applications of the as-printed objects. At last, future challenges and research opportunities are outlooked, aiming at providing useful information for the researchers in this field.