MXene Functionalized Kevlar Yarn via Automated, Continuous Dip Coating
Lingyi Bi1,2, William Perry1, Ruocun (John) Wang1, Robert Lord1, Tetiana Hryhorchuk1, Alex Inman1, Oleksiy Gogotsi3, Vitaliy Balitskiy3, Veronika Zahorodna3, Ivan Baginskiy3, Stepan Vorotilo1, Yury Gogotsi1*
1 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and A. J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
2 Center for Functional Fabrics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
3 Materials Research Center, Kyiv 03680, Ukraine
The rise of the Internet of Things has spurred extensive research on integrating conductive materials into textiles to turn them into sensors, antennas, energy storage devices, and heaters. MXenes, owing to their high electrical conductivity and solution processability, offer an efficient way to add conductivity and electronic functions to textiles through simple dip coating. However, manual development of MXene-coated textiles restricts their quality, quantity, and variety. Here, a versatile automated yarn dip coater tailored for producing continuously high-quality MXene-coated yarns and conducted the most comprehensive MXene-yarn dip coating study to date is developed. Compared to manual methods, the automated coater provides lower resistance, superior uniformity, faster speed, and reduced MXene consumption. It also enables rapid coating parameter optimization, resulting in a thin Ti3C2 coating uniform over a 1 km length on a braided Kevlar yarn while preserving its excellent mechanical properties (over 800 MPa) and adding Joule heating and damage sensing to composites reinforced by the yarns. By dip-coating five different yarns of varying materials, diameters, structures, and chemistries, new insights into MXene-yarn interactions are gained. Thus, the automated dip coating presents ample opportunities for scalable integration of MXenes into a wide range of yarns for diverse functions and applications.
In summary, we designed and built a customized automated yarn dip coater for developing MXene-coated yarns, which can also be used for layer-by-layer coating and application of other nanomaterials.The dip coater enabled acomprehensive parametric study of MXene coating on braided Kevlar yarns and helped find the optimal combinations of MXene concentration, flake size, and drawing speed for strain sensing and Joule heating functions. Our high-throughput dip coater enables the production of a vastlibrary of MXene-functionalized conductive yarns exhibiting diverse physical, electrical, and mechanical properties at low costand high quality. As a result, we anticipate that this developmentwill expedite the research and commercialization of MXene dip-coated yarns for electronic textile applications
Read more: L. Bi, W. Perry, R. J. Wang, R. Lord, T. Hryhorchuk, A. Inman, O. Gogotsi, V. Balitskiy, V. Zahorodna, I. Baginskiy, S. Vorotilo, Y. Gogotsi, MXene Functionalized Kevlar Yarn via Automated, Continuous Dip Coating. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2023, 2312434. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202312434
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Oleksiy Gogotsi, Lingui Bi, Veronika Zahorodna, Iryna Roslyk, Ivan Baginskiy, Vitalii Balitskiy, Oksana Peschanska, Serhii Dukhnovskiy, Leonid Yaremenko, Stanislav Stankevich, Andrey Aniskevich, Yury Gogotsi. Scaling up of the MXene Dip-Coated Yarns production process for smart textiles, wearable electronics and structural monitoring and damage diagnostics. 24th Annual Conference on Material Science, Herceg Novi, Montenegro, September 4-8, 2023
Congratulations and thank you to our collaborators from TU Wien and CEST for very interesting work and making it published! In this work, an upscalable electrochemical MXene synthesis is presented. Yields of up to 60% electrochemical MXene (EC-MXene) with no byproducts from a single exfoliation cycle are achieved.
Thank you to our collaborators for the amazing joint work recently published in Graphene and 2D Nanomaterials about MXene–silk fibroin composite films aiming to develop materials with tunable electronic and thermal properties
Congratulations to all collaborators with this interesting joint work!
Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi, director of MRC and Carbon-Ukraine, innovative companies that are among the leaders on the world MXene market, visited 2024 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit. together with Dr. Maksym Pogorielov, Head of Advanced Biomaterials and Biophysics Laboratory, University of Latvia.
MRC and Carbon-Ukraine team visited the 3rd International MXene conference held at Drexel University on August 5-8, 2024. Conference brought together the best reserchers and leading experts on MXene field. 
Together with colleagues from the University of Latvia, MRC/Carbone Ukraine, Adam Mickiewicz University, University Clinic Essen, and others, we have developed a novel concept involving the binding of antibodies to MXenes. In our research, we utilized anti-CEACAM1 antibodies to develop targeted photo-thermal therapy for melanoma (in vitro), paving the way for future in vivo studies and clinical trials. For the first time, we demonstrate the feasibility of delivering MXenes specifically targeted to melanoma cells, enabling the effective ablation of cancer cells under near-infrared (NIR) light. This new technique opens up vast potential for the application of MXenes in cancer treatment, diagnostics, drug delivery, and many other medical purposes.
Here we demonstrate a new developed method for depositing Ti3C2Tx MXenes onto hydrophobic electrospun PCL membranes using oxygen plasma treatment. These novel patches hold tremendous potential for providing mechanical support to damaged heart tissue and enabling electrical signal transmission,thereby mimicking the crucial electroconductivity required for normal cardiac function. After a detailed investigation of scaffold-to-cell interplay, including electrical stimulation, novel technology has the potential for clinical application not only for cardiac regeneration, but also as neural and muscular tissue substitutes.
MX-MAP project participants from MRC Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi and Veronika Zahorodna performed split secondment visit to project partner organization University of Padova (Italy). MX-MAP project works on development of the key strategies for MXene medical applications. 
CanbioSe Project Meeting and Project Workshop was held at European Institute of Membranes (IEM), University of Montpellier, France on September 26-27, 2023. The workshop was focused on the theme of "Commercializing Biosensors, Intellectual Property, and Knowledge Transfer from Academia to Industry.
Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi and Veronika Zahorodna visited IEEE NAP 2023 conference held in Bratislava on September 10-15, 2023. The prime focus of the IEEE NAP-2023 was on nanoscale materials with emphasis on interdisciplinary research exploring and exploiting their unique physical and chemical proprieties for practical applications.
Director of MRC and Carbon-Ukraine Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi visited CEST labs in Wiener Neustadt (Low Energy Ion Scattering, Batteries development) and TU Vienna (ELSA, SFA). He meet with Dr. Pierluigi Bilotto, Dr. Chriatian Pichler and their colleagues, discussing novel materials and r&d activities for new technologies.