# Recent advances in MXenes: from fundamentals to applications

## TL;DR

This review summarizes recent progress in MXenes, highlighting their diverse properties, synthesis breakthroughs, and potential applications in catalysis, energy storage, and sensing, emphasizing the importance of experimental validation of theoretical predictions.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive update on MXenes' fundamental properties, synthesis methods, and multifunctional applications, emphasizing recent advances and future prospects.

## Key findings

- Synthesis of novel MXenes with higher chemical diversity
- MXenes exhibit tunable surface chemistry and magnetic properties
- Potential for applications in catalysis, batteries, and sensors

## Abstract

The family of MAX phases and their derivative MXenes are continuously growing in terms of both crystalline and composition varieties. In the last couple of years, several breakthroughs have been achieved that boosted the synthesis of novel MAX phases with ordered double transition metals and, consequently, the synthesis of novel MXenes with a higher chemical diversity and structural complexity, rarely seen in other families of two-dimensional (2D) materials. Considering the various elemental composition possibilities, surface functional tunability, various magnetic orders, and large spin$-$orbit coupling, MXenes can truly be considered as multifunctional materials that can be used to realize highly correlated phenomena. In addition, owing to their large surface area, hydrophilicity, adsorption ability, and high surface reactivity, MXenes have attracted attention for many applications, e.g., catalysts, ion batteries, gas storage media, and sensors. Given the fast progress of MXene-based science and technology, it is timely to update our current knowledge on various properties and possible applications. Since many theoretical predictions remain to be experimentally proven, here we mainly emphasize the physics and chemistry that can be observed in MXenes and discuss how these properties can be tuned or used for different applications.