Studying of 2D Titanium Carbide Structure by Raman Spectroscopy after Heat Treatment in Argon and Hydrogen Atmospheres

Herein we show the effect of heat treatment of two dimensional layered titanium carbide structure (Ti 3 C 2 Tx), so called MXene. As prepared MXene has functional groups -OH, -F, -Cl. In order to remove the functional groups we heat treated the MXene in Ar (with 0.01% O 2 ) and H 2 (with 0.01% H 2 O) atmospheres. We discovered the significant decrease in the amount of functional groups (-F and -Cl) and increase in the -O content, which refers to the oxidation of the material. Also we determined the optimal regime for Raman spectroscopy in order to avoid any changes in the structure of the material. We revealed that titanium carbide changes its structure at 700 В°C and 900 В°C into two different titanium dioxide modifications like rutile and anatase in Ar (with 0.01% O 2 ) atmosphere. Also there are small changes occurred in Ti 3 C 2 Tx structure and formation of amorphous carbon after 700 В°C treatment in H 2 (with 0.01% H 2 O) atmosphere and formation of TiO 2 (rutile) at 900 В°C. Energydispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) revealed the reduction of functional groups at 700 В°C in both atmospheres and total disappearance of –F and –Cl and increasing the oxygen at 900 В°C. The huge increase of oxygen by atomic percent, can be explained by the initial oxygen content in argon and hydrogen gases. В