Acidic "Water-in-Salt" Electrolyte Enables a High-Energy Symmetric Supercapacitor Based on Titanium Carbide MXene.

Titanium carbide MXene, TiCT, exhibits ultrahigh capacitance in acidic electrolytes at negative potentials yet poor stability at positive potentials, resulting in low-energy densities for TiCT-based symmetric supercapacitors. Utilizing "water-in-salt" electrolytes has successfully expanded the stable operation potential window of MXenes. However, this advancement comes at the cost of sacrificing their high capacitance in acidic electrolytes. In this work, we report an acidic "water-in-salt" (AWIS) electrolyte composed of sulfuric acid and saturated lithium halide, which effectively doubled the energy density of the TiCT-based symmetric supercapacitor compared to those with bare acidic electrolytes. Specifically, the AWIS electrolyte successfully expanded the voltage window of the symmetric device to 1.1 V. A high specific capacitance of 112.34 F g (at 10 mV s) was obtained due to the presence of proton redox. As a result, the symmetric device achieved a high-energy density of 19.1 Wh kg and a high capacitance retention of 96.3% after 10,000 cycles. This work demonstrates the importance of designing stable and redox-active electrolytes for high-energy MXene-based symmetric supercapacitors.