Review
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Stimuli-Responsive MXene-Based Actuators
Van Hiep Nguyen, Rassoul Tabassian, Saewoong Oh, Sanghee Nam, Manmatha Mahato,
Pitchai Thangasamy, Araz Rajabi-Abhari, Won-Jun Hwang, Ashhad Kamal Taseer,
and Il-Kwon Oh*
MXenes, a member of 2D inorganic compounds that contain few-atom-thick
layers of transition metal carbides, nitrides, and polar surface functional
groups, are extraordinary materials for many applications including stimuli-
responsive actuators. Here, an extensive review on MXene-based actuators in
comparison with other 2D materials-based actuators is reported, highlighting
the main differences in view of chemical structure, mechanical properties,
and electrical functionalities. First, since MXenes are newcomers in the field
of actuators, their properties are explained including cation and ionic liquid
intercalation, high capacitance, good electrical and thermal conductivity,
excellent electromagnetic wave absorption, hydrophilicity, and outstanding
dispersion in many polar solvents. Second, electro-ionic, electrochemical,
electrothermal, photothermal, and humidity-responsive MXene-based actua-
tors are comprehensively addressed with detailed actuation mechanisms,
focusing on electro-ionic soft actuators. Third, several applications of those
actuators are summarized with an emphasis on soft robotics and future direc-
tions of MXene-based actuators are suggested.
1. Introduction
MXenes are among the newest members in the 2D material
family. They were first introduced in 2011, seven years after
the first graphene (2004).[1–6] Despite their recent introduc-
tion, these 2D materials have developed rapidly; over thirty
types of MXenes and nearly ten synthetic procedures have been
reported, many properties have been throughout investigated
and increasingly diverse applications have been explored.[5–8]
Like various 2D materials, MXenes display stimuli-responsive
behavior.[9] For example, some types of MXenes, individually or
together with other materials, have been reported to respond
to many stimulants such as electrical field (Nb2CTx, Ti3C2Tx),
carbon dioxide and temperature (V2CTx), relative humidity
V. H. Nguyen, Dr. R. Tabassian, S. Oh, S. Nam, Dr. M. Mahato,
Dr. P. Thangasamy, Dr. A. Rajabi-Abhari, W.-J. Hwang, A. K. Taseer,
Prof. I.-K. Oh
National Creative Research Initiative for Functionally Antagonistic
Nano-Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
E-mail: ikoh@kaist.ac.kr
The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article
can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201909504.
DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201909504
Adv. Funct. Mater. 2020, 1909504 1909504 (1 of 27)
(RH) (Ti3C2Tx) and light (Ti3C2Tx); these
materials have been employed in areas
of electrorheological fluids, smart sys-
tems, electromagnetic shielding, and
photothermal therapy, respectively.[10–12]
Therefore, MXenes can be applied to stim-
uli-responsive actuators. While other 2D
materials (graphene and graphene-based
substances, boron nitride, molybdenum
disulfide—MoS2, black phosphorus, gra-
phitic carbon nitride, graphdiyne, etc.)
have been investigated intensively in
several types of actuators, MXenes have
succeeded only in electroactive, photo-
thermal, and humidity-sensitive actua-
tors.[13–29] As a new member of the 2D
material family, with the aforementioned
valuable properties, MXenes could have
great potential for use in stimuli-respon-
sive actuators.
Basically, actuators are devices that are
responsible for moving and/or control-
ling a machine or a system. Normally, an actuator requires a
stimulus control signal and an energy source input. The control
signals cause actuators to deform, hence converting the input
energies into mechanical motions, which are utilized to operate
machines or systems. Stimulants can be electrical or magnetic
fields, heat, light, RH, pH, chemicals, hydraulics, pressure, and
so on.[30–33] In many cases, a stimulant is also the energy source
input. Actuators made of different materials respond to each
stimulant distinctly, with diverse mechanisms. For example,
ionic electroactive soft actuators, which have a sandwich struc-
ture of an electrolyte polymer membrane between two elec-
trodes, bend due to the rearrangement of ions according to
external electrical fields.[27] Photoactuators can deform due to
several mechanisms, including thermal expansion/contraction,
change in humidity adsorption degree, or variation of molecular
configuration.[28,34,35] Many stimuli-responsive soft actuators are
light, flexible, and compliant, and offer high-motion complexity,
safety, low noise, small vibration, space-savings, high degree
of freedom, and adaptability to changes in the environment,
etc., which are remarkable advantages and may allow these
actuators to replace rigid counterparts in many devices.[36–40]
Moreover, electroactive actuators that are synchronous and
compatible with conventional electronics and batteries can be
electrically activated and easily manipulated via voltage magni-
tude, phase and frequency.[29,37,38] As a result of these favorable
properties, MXene-based soft actuators are promising can-
didates in many applications such as wearable electronics,
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haptics, biomedicines, and MEMS.[37–41] These applications
have expanded from hard and gigantic systems to soft and
small units. Moreover, soft actuators are decisive components
in soft robotics, a core area of the current fourth industrial
revolution.[29,37,42] Recent advanced technologies like artificial
intelligence based on the internet of things, healthcare devices,
revolutionized human–robot interaction systems, and biomi-
metic robots not only facilitate these actuator applications, but
also require actuators to be capable of adapting to fast-changing
environments, mimicking sophisticated motions of biomimetic
soft organs, operating safely around humans, and delivering
the least discomfort to soft or fragile surroundings.[15,38,42,43]
Advances in new materials like MXenes could improve actua-
tion performance, and hence strongly promote the progress of
these applications. Recently, MXene-based electroactive ionic
actuators, for example, have shown great advancements in per-
formance, such that these actuators may successfully realize
several types of soft robotics.[27]
Many materials have been utilized in actuators. Typical
examples are carbon nanotubes (CNT), 2D materials (gra-
phene and graphene-based substances, MoS2, graphitic carbon
nitride, graphdiyne, transition metal dichalcogenides, boron
nitride, phosphorene), shape memory alloys, shape memory
polymers, polymer fibers, conducting polymers, dielectric
elastomers, hydrogels, all of which have been presented in
the literature with several intensive reviews and are beyond
the scope of this paper.[17,18,20–22,24,25,29,31,32,44–47] Herein, we dis-
cuss MXenes applied to actuators, as displayed in Figure 1.
Especially, because information on MXene synthesis, proper-
ties, and other applications can be found in many works in the
literature, but little effort has been devoted so far to actuators,
this paper will focus on aspects of MXenes that directly relate
to actuators.[4,6,10,48–60] First, since MXenes are very new in the
field of actuators, the material properties that assist stimuli-
responsive actuators will be explained and evaluated to show
how good MXenes are for the target applications. The second
part will review several types of MXene-based actuators, with
an emphasis on electroactive ionic actuators, for which MXenes
will be compared with other materials. In the third part, appli-
cations of these actuators to soft robotics, as well as to smart
devices, will be summarized. Finally, the paper will end with a
short conclusion and perspective.
2. MXene-Based Actuators and Their Applications
2.1. MXene Properties Benefiting Actuator Applications
Among recently ten reported procedures to synthesize MXenes,
the most common is to etch their corresponding MAX pre-
cursors using hydrofluoric acid (HF) or a combination of
hydrochloric acid (HCl) and lithium fluoride (LiF).[50,59] Many
properties of MXenes change broadly according to synthetic
routes. For example, quick etching with HF results in prod-
ucts with less electrical conductivity due to a larger number
of defects and smaller flakes than those prepared via slow and
mild etching with HCl and LiF.[61–63] Therefore, methods used
to prepare MXenes should be carefully selected to fit particular
target applications. The name MXenes, which originated from
Adv. Funct. Mater. 2020, 1909504 1909504 (2 of 27)
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Il-Kwon Oh is a full pro-
fessor in the department of
mechanical engineering at
Korea Advanced Institute
of Science and Technology
(KAIST), and the director
of the National Creative
Research Initiative for
Functionally Antagonistic
Nano-Engineering. He
received his Ph.D. from
KAIST in mechanical
engineering, and was a visiting scholar in Stanford
University and University of Washington. He worked for
LG Electronics Company as a senior researcher and for
Chonnam National University as a faculty member. His
research interests include 2D nanomaterials, smart mate-
rials, and soft actuators.
their basic precursors (MAX phases) and the fact that their
structures resemble that of graphene, reflects on their chemical
compositions and structures.[3] MAX phases are layered car-
bides or nitrides, denoted as Mn + 1AXn. M is one or two early
transition metals. A can be an element of groups IIIA or IVA. X
is nitrogen and/or carbon. The n value varies from 1 to 3 for dif-
ferent MAX phases (n = 1 for 211 types, n = 2 for 312 types, and
n = 3 for 413 types).[64] When A atoms are selectively removed
via etching, MAX phases in the original bulk stage are sliced
into 2D atom-thick layers; these are MXenes. The elimination
of A atoms generates free electrons of M atoms, which quickly
react with water or acids in the etching solutions to reach the
saturated valency stages, hence forming T (OH, O, F,
Cl) functional groups on the surfaces of the MXene layers.
Taken all together, MXenes, thereof, have general chemical
formulas like Mn + 1XnTx (n = 1 for M2X1Tx, n = 2 for M3X2Tx,
n = 3 for M4X3Tx).[6] Accordingly, MXenes have several atom-
layer thickness with hexagonally close-packed crystal structure
for M2X1Tx or face-centered cubic stacking for M3X2Tx and
M4X3Tx.[6] Because the strong quantum confinement of the elec-
trons within the unique 2D structure facilitates facile movement
of charge carriers along the planes, MXenes exhibit a number
of extraordinary properties, including excellent intrinsic con-
ductivity with electronic characteristics that vary from values of
superconductors to those of metals and semiconductors, high
specific volumetric capacitance, excellent electromagnetic wave
absorption, hydrophilicity due to the surface functional groups,
transparent conducting thin films, optical qualities, and so
on.[6,55–58,65–67] Moreover, many properties, especially conduc-
tivity, can be noticeably altered by modification of surface func-
tional groups and/or selection of suitable synthesis.[58,61–63,68]
These valuable properties make MXenes promising materials
for numerous applications ranging from stimuli-response
actuators, energy storage, solar cells, catalysts, and electronics
to electromagnetic interference shielding, optics and photonics,
plasmonics, biomedicines, etc.[4,6,10,48,49,51–58,60,63,67,69,70]
Since the first report in 2011, numerous types of MXenes
have been reported, with many unique properties that have
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Figure 1. Stimuli-responsive MXene-based actuators: kinetic brooch, flapping butterfly, and dancing leaves. Adapted with permission.[27]
Copyright 2019, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Worm-like robot, smart ink, remote switcher, self-folding box, and self-
blooming flower. Adapted with permission.[28] Copyright 2019, The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for
the Advancement of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). Light-driven motion.
Adapted with permission.[125] Copyright 2019, Royal Society of Chemistry. Robotic arms. Adapted with permission.[26] Copyright 2019, American
Chemical Society.

been thoroughly studied.[3,6] Among them, some properties
that have been proven in diverse applications could be helpful
and exploitable in stimuli-responsive actuators. These typical
properties include cation and ionic liquid intercalation, high
capacitance, good electrical and thermal conductivity, excellent
electromagnetic wave absorption, hydrophilicity, and excellent
dispersion in many polar organic solvents and water. Usually,
several properties could benefit one particular kind of actuator
and one single characteristic could favor various types of actua-
tors. These properties, together with relevant actuator applica-
tions, are described in detail below.
It has been proved via in situ atomic force microscopy
(AFM), topography, and x-ray diffraction (XRD) that MXenes
enable many cations to be electrochemically intercalated among
layers, thereby changing the volume, which can be good for
actuators using electrical stimulants (Figure 2).[26,27,57,71,72] Rea-
sons for intercalation could be the negatively charged surfaces
(zeta potential of the colloidal solution: −39.5 mV) and polar
functional groups of Ti3C2Tx MXene.[73,74] While theoretical
calculations via density functional theory (DFT) initially antic-
ipated that lithium cation could diffuse on the surfaces of
Ti3C2Tx, most practical MXene synthesis processes now require
intercalation with small cations or polar organic solvents as a
key synthetic step to enlarge the interlayer spacing and weaken
the interaction among MXene layers.[6,56,59,75–77] For example,
intercalating Ti3C2Tx increased the Kaolinite’s c-lattice para-
meter from 19.5 ± 0.1 to 35.04 ± 0.02 Å for dimethyl sulfoxide
and 25.00 ± 0.02 Å for urea.[6,77] Intensive intercalation can lead
to final exfoliation, which is employed to prepare single layer
MXene sheets. Furthermore, while most other 2D materials are
restricted to using small lithium ions, experiments confirmed
that Ti3C2Tx can be spontaneously intercalated by a number
of cations with different sizes (Li+, Na+, Mg2+, K+, NH4+, and
Al3+) as illustrated in Figure 2a.[57,72] Especially, when Ti3C2Tx
was applied to capacitors, the intercalations were proven to be a
reversible process with ten-thousand-cycle stability.[57] Addition-
ally, this intercalation phenomenon induces changes of mate-
rial volume, which have been affirmed via AFM (Figure 2b),

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Figure 2. Cation intercalation between MXene sheets: a) scheme of cation intercalation, b) scheme of deformation measurement by AFM, c) topog-
raphy images according to potentials, d) X-ray diffraction patterns of (0002) peak according to potentials in 1 m Li2SO4, e) corresponding d-spacing
values according to potentials, and f) relative electrode deformation profiles. Insets (a), (b), (d), (e), and (f) are adapted with permission.[72] Copyright
2015, Elsevier. Inset (c) is adapted with permission.[71] Copyright 2017, Royal Society of Chemistry.

topography (Figure 2c), and XRD (Figure 2d–e).[57,71,72] More
importantly, a certain degree of volume change is observed with
various cations and correlates with the magnitude of the applied
voltage: stronger negative potentials attract more cations,
which replaced water molecules and interacted more strongly
with negatively charged surface groups (-Tx) of MXene sheets
than water molecules, hence leading to reducing the interlayer
spacing and finally greater volume decrease (Figure 2a,e–f).
Both topography and XRD results verify that this intercala-
tion process is reversible. Reversible intercalation and induced
volume change proportional to voltage magnitude are crucial
for making electromechanical actuators, as has been demon-
strated in other materials (conducting polymers and MoS2)
with similar properties.[21,46,78,79] While reversible intercalation
enables materials to absorb and expel ions repeatedly, volume
change corresponding to voltage potential permits actuators to
be controlled directly by electrical signals, which is an essen-
tial property when electroactive actuators are applied to operate
dynamic systems and soft robots. Moreover, spontaneous inter-
calation could result in rapid actuation response, and thereby
actuators can work at high frequencies. Many cations with
different sizes can be inserted among MXene sheets and can
provide much freedom of selection of suitable cations, making
it possible to tune actuation performances for target applica-
tions according to the determined requirements. Actuators
that exploit cation intercalation may need to operate in liquid
electrolytes, similar to conducting polymers and MoS2.[21,46,78–80]
Although MXenes are relatively new in the field of actuators
and there has been only one report applying these materials
to wet-type actuators, their intercalation property with volume
change, and the fact that increasingly more types of MXenes
are being synthesized, could advance in soft actuators with
increase in bending deformations.[6,26]
While cation intercalation is limited to electroactive wet-type
actuators, ionic liquid intercalation could extend to dry-type
counterparts that can operate in open-air atmosphere.[37,81–83]

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Figure 3. Ionic liquid intercalation between MXene sheets: a) scheme of changing layer spacing according to potentials, b) In situ XRD patterns while
MXene wetted by ionic liquids and under potentials, c) normalized deformations according to potentials. Adapted with permission.[85] Copyright 2016,
American Chemical Society.
Fortunately, many ionic liquids such as 1-butyl-3-methylim-
idazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMImBF4), 1-ethyl-3-methyl-
imidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) (EMImTFSI), and
1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMImBF4)
can intercalate among MXene layers (Figure 3).[84,85] Note that
EMImBF4 has been widely used in electroactive ionic actuators.
In addition, these ionic liquids are hydrophobic and reduce the
effect of moisture in air, thus increasing cyclic stability of the
actuators. Similar to cation intercalation, ionic liquid intercala-
tion also causes volume change in MXenes, which is a direct
benefit for actuator applications. However, different from cation
intercalation in solution, which shows negative strain for nega-
tive potential and no change for positive potential (anions show
no effect), ionic liquid intercalation happens to both cations
and anions with positive strain (expansion) in negative poten-
tial for cation intercalations and negative strain (contraction)
in positive potential for anion intercalations, as illustrated in
Figure 3a.[57,85] Accordingly, when MXenes were dipped in ionic
liquids, applying negative potential generated positive strain
(increase in volume) due to the intercalation of big size cations;
positive potential induced negative strain (decrease in volume)
as a result of the intercalation of small size anions (Figure 3b).
This phenomenon was also confirmed by in situ XRD: shifts
of the 002-peak according to applied potential clearly indicate
changes of the MXene interlayer spacing (Figure 3c). All results
imply that the volume changes are reversible and controllable
by voltage amplitude, resulting in the mechanical strain up to
12%. These properties suggest that MXenes could be suitable
materials for enhancing the performance of electroactive ionic
actuators, as discussed subsequently.[27,85]
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Besides intercalation, good electrical conductivity and
high capacitance also greatly contribute to making an
excellent MXenes electrode for use in electroactive ionic
actuators.[29,40,54,55,57,60] Having these two properties simultane-
ously is a very important advantage of MXenes since most other
electrode materials used in actuators usually show only one of
the two characteristics. For example, graphene and CNT have
good conductivity but low capacitance, while titanium carbide
exhibits high capacitance but poor conductivity.[20,31,83,86–88] Con-
sequently, composite electrodes made via complex processes
with several components have had to be used for high-perfor-
mance actuators. As is evident in Table 1, Ti3C2Tx, which is the
most commonly used MXene, ranks the best among electrically
conductive materials that have been utilized in electroactive
ionic actuators, almost reaching the values of platinum metal
and individual CNT in pristine stages.[55,60,89,90] In addition,
when combined with other materials to form electrodes for
electroactive actuators, Ti3C2Tx systems display relatively high
conductivity comparable to those of graphene and CNT, and
even higher than that of platinum.[22,27,31,91–93] This high elec-
trical conductivity of MXenes could be very valuable for electro-
active actuators because charges could consequently distribute
through entire electrodes effectively in a short time, resulting
in fast responsive actuators operating at high frequencies.[29]
MXenes are also among the highest capacitive materials, as
demonstrated in their applications to capacitors.[6,54,57,58,94] Such
high capacitance could help MXene electrodes to store a great
number of charges in low applied voltages, hence generating
strong electrical field to promote the ion migration speed, even-
tually improving actuation performance. This is very important
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Table 1. Electrical conductivity of some materials applied to electroac-
tive ionic actuators.
Materials
MXene Pristine material Ti3C2Tx foam[60]
Ti3C2Tx film[55]
Applied to actuator Ti3C2Tx MXene/PEDOT:PSS[27]
Platinum Pristine material Metallic film[89]
Applied to actuator electroless plating platinum
CNT Pristine material individual CNT[90]
bulky paper[133]
Applied to actuator SG-SWCNT/EMImTFSI
SWCNT-polyaniline/PVdF-HFP/
EMImBF4[134]
BP-CNT[25]
MWCNT[92]
MWCNT/rGO[92]
MWCNT/PEDOT:PSS[135]
SWCNT/PEDOT:PSS/EMImBF4[93]
[136]
Graphene Pristine material rGO paper
rGO single layer, individual
sheet[137]
arc-discharge-exfoliated
graphene[138]
Applied to actuator rGO paper[87]
rGO film[92]
rGO/PEDOT:PSS[23]
SN-codoped rGO/PEDOT:PSS
3D GCN-NG/PEDOT:PSS[22]
Other Applied to actuator COF/PEDOT:PSS[118]
materials
N-doped carbon/PEDOT:PSS[128]
graphitic carbon nitride/PVdF[24]
PEDOT:PSS film[23]
TiC/PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4
in terms of energy conservation and safety.[29] Moreover, low
applied voltages also enhance actuator durability because of
the stability of electrolyte systems, which usually have narrow
electrochemical potential windows. Therefore, good electrical
conductivity and high capacitance strengthen the advantages
of MXenes over other materials for use in electroactive ionic
actuators.
In addition, the high electrical conductivity of MXenes could
be useful in electrothermal actuators when the conductivity is
tuned to convert electrical energy into its thermal counterpart
according to the Joule heating effect.[28,95] While the electroactive
ionic actuators have three layers (two electrodes and an elec-
trolyte membrane), electrothermal actuators usually have a
bimorph structure and bend as a result of thermal expansion of
the active layer via electrical heating.[47,96] Since MXenes are elec-
trically anisotropic materials with excellent conductivity within
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a single sheet and poor conductivity among sheets, the con-
ductivity, and the thereof resistance of the actuator electrodes,
can be easily adjusted through interlayer spacing and size, as
Conductivity, well as through the defect degree of the MXene flakes.[57,58,61–63]
S m−1
For example, the electrical conductivity of MXene layers was
4.0 × 105 reported to change from 1000 to 6500 S cm−1 in correspond-
4.8 × 105 ence with the size of MXene sheets.[62] Moreover, MXenes have
14.6 × 103 been theoretically and experimentally proven to be excellent
thermal conductors.[97] Therefore, MXenes appear to be a good
10.2 × 106
candidate for electrothermal actuators. In fact, Ti3C2Tx MXene
[91]
1.0 × 102 was proven a valuable material for flexible textile heaters, as
19.6 × 106 shown in Figure 4.[95,98] Accordingly, the temperature increased
55.0 × 103 uniformly for the whole MXene thin film when it was electri-
[31]
16.9 × 103
cally connected (Figure 4a). The temperature was effectively
regulated by changing the resistance from 215 to 660 Ω sq−1
3.2 × 103
according to the thickness of the film (Figure 4b) and changing
the amplitude of the applied voltages from 3 to 15 V (Figure 4c).
19.3 × 103 More importantly, the resistance and temperature remained
30.3 × 103 stable while the film was bent from 0o to 180o (Figure 4d) and it
13.5 × 103 is essential to the stability of electrothermal actuators that have
15.4 × 103
to bend repeatedly during cyclic operations. As a result, MXene
coated on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) fiber was success-
1.6 × 103
fully applied to shape-adaptable heaters (Figure 4e,f). Taken
7.2 × 103 together, these results strongly suggest that MXenes can be suc-
2.8 × 102 cessfully exploited in electrothermal actuators.
MXenes, with good thermal conductivity and excellent elec-
2.0 × 105 tromagnetic wave absorption, could be very meaningful for
photothermal and induction heating actuators (Figure 5). In
31.5 × 103 fact, besides photothermal actuators, interaction of MXenes
with electromagnetic waves has been exploited in many applica-
4.5 × 103
tions related to solar energy, phototherapy, and electromagnetic
57.6 × 103
interference shielding.[10,12,28,52,55,60,99,100] For example, Ti3C2Tx
[23]
76.8 × 103 MXene was successfully employed as a black material to absorb
78.0 × 103 sunlight and convert it into heat for use in a solar-to-steam gen-
75.2 × 103
erating system as depicted in Figure 5a.[100] Compared with CNT,
an excellent black material, Ti3C2Tx MXene absorbed light much
better over a wide range of wavelength from 300 to 1300 nm.[99]
73.0 × 103
Because crumpled MXene enhanced light scattering more than
0.38 × 103
planar MXene, the former absorbed solar radiation much better
35.5 × 103 than the latter (Figure 5b).[100] Moreover, the light-to-heat con-
[88]
16.0 × 100 version efficiency of this MXene reached 100%.[99] Therefore,
small amounts of MXene coated on a polystyrene film helped
the temperature increase from 30 to 65 °C under one sun illu-
mination (Figure 5c).[100] The result presented in Figure 5d also
proves the excellent thermal conductivity of MXene when the
temperature was high and uniform within the MXene film.[100]
Since photothermal actuators bend as a result of light-to-heat
conversion, which reversibly induces volume changes due to
thermal expansion and/or small molecular absorption in mate-
rials, the conversion efficiency of 100% could be very attrac-
tive.[35,101–104] In terms of efficiency of light-to-heat conversion,
Ti3C2Tx was proven to be better than both CNT and reduced
graphene oxide (rGO), which are common materials used in
photothermal actuators.[35,100,101,103,105] Moreover, regarding
small molecular absorption like water, MXenes are also clearly
better than graphene and CNT because the former is certainly
hydrophilic due to the polar functional groups on its surfaces,
while the latter are definitely hydrophobic. Therefore, MXenes
could have great potential in photo­thermal actuators.
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Figure 4. Electrothermal properties: a) IR images of MXene thin film heater at 10 and 0 V, temperature according to b) resistance at 15 V, and c) voltage,
d) resistance and temperature according to bending angle, e) schematic illustration and optical photos of PET MXene-coated fiber, f) optical and IR
photos of cotton glover sewed with MXene-coated fiber under a voltage. Adapted with permission.[95] Copyright 2019, American Chemical Society.

Apart from the usefulness of this characteristic in photo-
thermal actuators, hydrophilicity also makes MXenes helpful for
humidity-responsive actuators because these materials change
shape according to humidity fluctuation (Figure 6).[14,28,106,107]
In addition to the polar functional groups on the surfaces,
residual cations after synthesis also contribute to the sensitive
interaction between Ti3C2Tx MXene sheets and water vapor in
air through hydrogen bonds and the hydration/dehydration
process (Figure 6a).[106] Adsorbed water molecules can easily
accommodate on the free space and enlarge the d-spacings
of 2D MXene nanosheets without altering the crystal struc-
ture. Because hydrogen bonds are weak (4–170 kJ mol−1) and
the hydration energy is small (520 kJ mol−1 for lithium ion),
MXenes are very sensitive to RH and the interaction is revers-
ible. Therefore, fluctuation of humidity causes these MXene
sheets to swell and contract, as is clearly evident in gravi-
metric results.[107] This phenomenon is also confirmed by the
XRD results, as can be seen in Figure 6d–f.[106] Subsequently,
the 3D plots and XRD patterns of the intercalated MXenes for
the 2θ peak position, corresponding to 002 reflection, clearly
demonstrate the response of the material to RH (Figure 6d,e).
The result for the c parameter (2 x d002) in Figure 6f proves the
atomic-scale actuation, which finally induces volume changes
at macro scale. In addition, it has been reported that MXenes
easily exchanged their interlayer adsorbed ions with different
cations (K+, Na+, Rb+, Mg2+, Ca2+, etc.) and correspondingly
changed their moisture/water adsorption/desorption behavior.
More specifically, each cation, with unique size and charge,
resulted in a different interlayer d spacing. For example, the
STEM cross-section images in Figure 6b,c clearly show that the
interlayer d spacings of MXenes upon intercalation with K+ and
Mg2+ ions in dry condition were 11.5 and 10.1 Å, respectively;
these results were validated theoretically by DFT-molecular
dynamics simulations (insets of Figure 6b,c).[107] As a result,
each cation-intercalated MXene reversibly responded to dif-
ferent ranges of RH, as follows: 0–10% for Mg2+, 20–50%
for Ca2+, 60–95% for Li+ and Na+, and no response for K+
(Figure 6f).[106] These response ranges apparently correlate
with standard hydration enthalpies, which are −1920, −1590,
−520, −405, and −320 kJ mol−1 for Mg2+, Ca2+, Li+, Na+, and K+,

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Figure 5. Photothermal characteristics: a) scheme of sunlight absorption of MXene, b) UV–vis-NIR absorption spectra, c) temperature increase and
d) temperature depth profile while exposing to sun illumination. Adapted with permission.[100] Copyright 2019, John Wiley and Sons.
respectively.[108] These results indicate that even for the same
type of MXene, different intercalated cations respond to distinct
RH ranges, which should be considered when applying MXenes
to humidity-responsive actuators. When lithium cations were
replaced by protons and the MXene was applied to humidity
sensors, the Ti3C2Tx film was ultrasensitive, with reversible
response at a wide range of RH from 0.1% to 95.0%, which sug-
gests that MXene humidity-responsive actuators could operate
over a broad range of humidity and that actuation performance
could be finely tuned.[109] Moreover, when Ti3C2Tx MXene was
combined with polyelectrolytes and the composite was used in
humidity sensors, it showed ultrafast response and recovery
times, 110 ms for the former and 220 ms for the latter, which
means that MXene can quickly reach the equilibrium stage via
rapid water adsorption/desorption when RH changes.[110] This
result indicates that humidity-responsive actuators based on
hygroscopic MXene materials could have significantly rapid
response.
For stimuli-responsive actuators, the polar surface functional
groups of MXenes not only contribute to volume changes via
direct interactions with cations, ionic liquids, and humidity as
shown previously, but also facilitate the fabrication processes.
To fabricate films for use in actuators, MXenes and other 2D
materials need to be well dispersed in solvents, especially
water. In this context, MXenes have a great advantage over
other 2D materials in that they disperse better at higher con-
centrations in water and organic solvents.[6,75,111] For example,
stable aqueous MXene colloidal suspensions can be easily and
directly used to fabricate free-standing films or to make com-
posites with polymers for a wide range of applications.[74] By
contrast, poor dispersibility of graphene in water and most
organic solvents makes it difficult to be processed, thereby
hindering its use in many technological fields including actua-
tors, despite its excellent material properties. For example,
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single layer dispersions in water of Ti3C2Tx, MoS2, and rGO
are 9.00, 1.50, and 0.16 mg mL−1, respectively.[21,53,112] Excellent
dispersion is important because in most applications including
actuators, several materials have to be mixed together in solu-
tion. For instance, in electroactive ionic actuators, electrode
materials must be usually combined with ionic liquids and/
or polymer binders. A typical polymer binder is poly(3,4-
ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS),
a conducting polymer that can also contribute to electrical
(PEDOT) and ionic (PSS) conductivities and flexibility. The per-
centages of electrode materials in comparison to PEDOT:PSS
are summarized in Table 2. Accordingly, in composite elec-
trodes, the amount of Ti3C2Tx MXene peaked at 50%, while
numbers for CNT and rGO were much smaller, around two
and ten times.[27,29,93] Increases of amounts of materials natu-
rally produce better performance. Besides allowing a large
amount of materials to be mixed, enhanced dispersion causes
electrode properties to be regular and reduces the dormant per-
centage of those materials. Moreover, polar functional groups
on MXene sheet surfaces reduce restacking during mixing
because the delaminated single and few-layer MXene sheets
desirably display significantly improved electrochemical per-
formance compared to that of multi-layer stacked MXenes.[113]
Even if MXene sheets restack, they retain their properties and
show activity because their functional groups prevent them
from approaching each other closely enough to form new mate-
rials like graphene, which would generate graphite. This is
supported by the fact that multilayer Ti3C2Tx has a low surface
area but high capacitance.[57] In contrast, because graphene has
almost no functional groups, restacking single-layer graphene
via π–π stacking and van der Waals force is unpreventable
and irreversible, resulting in the formation of multilayer gra-
phene sheets and, finally, graphite, thus failing the exploitation
of monolayer graphene, which has outstanding properties.[114]
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Figure 6. Humidity absorption: a) scheme humid response, STEM cross-section images for b) K+, and c) Mg2+ intercalated MXene, d) 3D plots of (002)
XRD peak according to RH with e) corresponding intensity, and f) c parameter (2 x d002). Insets (a), (d), (e), and (f) are adapted with permission.[106]
Copyright 2016, American Chemical Society. Insets (b) and (c) are adapted with permission.[107] Copyright 2017, American Chemical Society.

This restacking phenomenon increases the amount of pas-
sive graphene because only the outer layer is exposed to the
environment and interacts with ions or small molecules. Fur-
thermore, restacking also rapidly changes the electronic proper-
ties, reaching those of graphite at ten layers.[2] Therefore, the
presence of functional groups on their surfaces is a big advan-
tage of MXenes over graphene for use in actuators.
The responses of MXenes to stimuli, which induce volume
changes and make MXenes good for use in actuators, are sum-
marized in Figures 1 and 7. The stimulants are electricity,
light, and humidity, as explained previously in the description
of MXene properties (conductivity, light absorption, and polar
functional surface groups, respectively). Therefore, MXenes
were exploited in electroactive, photothermal, and humidity-
sensitive actuators. Additionally, other stimulants could be
used if MXenes are properly manipulated and/or combined
with other materials to add more functionalities. The MXene
illustrated in Figure 7 is Ti3C2Tx; it has been the most widely
used MXene in both actuators and all other applications. How-
ever, all types of MXenes can be applied to actuators. Although
the detailed mechanisms could differ from one stimulus to
another, the general phenomenon is that stimulants cause
MXenes to interact with the surrounding environment. There-
fore, MXenes reversibly absorb and expel small molecules or
ions (water, metal cations, ionic liquids, etc.), which induce
volume expansion or compression. These volume changes ulti-
mately generate mechanical bending deformations in actuators.
The electroactive, photothermal, and humidity-responsive actu-
ators, together with their applications in soft robotics and smart
devices, will be intensively reviewed in the following.
2.2. MXene-Based Actuators
MXenes are still relatively new materials in the field of actua-
tors, because the pioneering studies were reported in 2019, as

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Table 2. Percentages of MXene and other materials in comparison to
PEDOT:PSS.
Electrode materials Weight percentage, %
Ti3C2Tx MXene[27] 50
Carboxylic MWCNT[135] 30
SWCNT [93] 20
3D G-CNT-Ni[117] 10
pMoS2-nSNrGO[29] 5
[118]
BS-COF-C900 3.5
3D GCN-NG[22] 3 flexible conductive matrix.[93,116,117] On the other hand, because
Th-SNrGO[23,37] 2.5
N-doped carbon[128] 2.5
summarized in Figure 8. Actuators that responded to electrical
field (Figure 8a), light (Figure 8b), and RH (Figure 8c), will be
reviewed in the following sections. MXene-based electroactive
ionic actuators rank the best in the field in terms of actuation
performances and potential applications. Because MXenes have
various exceptional properties, it is expected that the reported
actuators will have greatly improved actuation performances
and new types of actuators that respond to other stimulants will
be developed in near future.
2.2.1. MXenes for Electroactive Ionic Actuators
A typical structure of electroactive ionic actuators is depicted in
Figure 9a. As can be seen, they are composed of an electrolyte
membrane sandwiched between two flexible electrodes. The
electrolyte membrane contains mobile cations and anions with
different sizes. Applying an electrical potential to the electrodes
makes ionic liquid dissociated cations and anions in the electro-
lyte membrane and exerts the mobile ions to move toward the
electrodes with opposite polarity. Since cations are usually larger
than anions, ion separation leads to asymmetric volume change
along the thickness, causing the actuator to bend.[29,37,40,115]
Accordingly, the electrode materials implemented for these
actuators need to have multiple functionalities. Like every elec-
trode, the main vital property for ionic actuators is high elec-
trical conductivity. For this property, carbon-based materials
have become one of the best ones.[20] Many research groups
Figure 7. The change of the gap between MXene sheets according to stimulus.
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have used carbon-based materials such as CNT, rGO, graphitic
carbon nitride nanosheet, graphene mesh, etc.[24,31,40,87,115]
However, for ionic actuators, electrodes need to maintain the
high conductivity during the repeated bending deformations,
requiring additional mechanical functionalities such as flex-
ibility and stretchability. As a result, the electrodes must be
composed of a flexible network of highly conductive materials.
Therefore, to enhance the mechanical resilience and to simul-
taneously maintain the electrical conductivity during bending
deformations, carbon-based materials are usually mixed with a
conductive polymer like PEDOT:PSS or polyaniline as a highly
they work based on a similar principle as supercapacitors, elec-
trode materials for ionic actuators must have high capacitance
capable of storing charges. Variety of high-capacity materials
have been recently proposed for electrodes in ionic actuators
such as sulfur and nitrogen-doped graphene, covalent organic
frameworks, nitrogen-enriched graphitic carbon, and even com-
bining several components like in MoS2/graphene composite,
graphene mesh/nitrogen-doped graphene flakes, etc.[22,23,29,118]
As explained previously, MXenes are among the most prom-
ising materials; they possess all the aforementioned functional-
ities required for ionic actuators. For example, while most other
electrodes need to combine several components to obtain good
conductivity and high capacitance, MXenes naturally have the
two properties. Furthermore, unlike graphene or other nano-
materials, MXenes can be engineered in various compositions
and layouts suitable for target applications because their prop-
erties significantly vary from one type to another. Even within
one type of MXene, the properties can be easily tuned via syn-
thetic routes, size of sheet, degree of defects, etc.[5–7,58,61–63] In
spite of their great potentials, these precious materials have
seemed to be neglected in ionic actuators. Il-Kwon Oh et al.
recently proposed a new ionic actuator benefiting from ioni-
cally cross-linked MXene electrodes.[27] They prepared Ti3C2Tx
MXene from Ti3AlC2 MAX powder by selectively etching alu-
minum atoms with LiF and HCl. Briefly, the electrode was
fabricated as follows. First, Ti3C2Tx was intercalated in a mix-
ture solvent of water and dimethylformamide with the aid
of sonication. Second, the obtained Ti3C2Tx suspension was
directly mixed with PEDOT:PSS dispersed in water, forming
a composite electrode precursor. Finally, the composite elec-
trode precursor was drop-cast on a Nafion/EMImBF4 electrolyte
membrane, forming an actuator, as shown in Figure 9a. More
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Figure 8. MXenes applied to stimuli-responsive actuators: a) electroactive actuators, b) photothermal actuators, c) moisture actuators. Ionic
actuators in inset (a) are adapted with permission.[27] Copyright 2019, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Electrochemical
actuators in inset (a) are adapted with permission.[26] Copyright 2019, American Chemical Society. Inset (b) is adapted with permission.[28]
Copyright 2019, The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. Distributed under
a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). Inset (c) is adapted with permission.[14] Copyright 2019, John Wiley
and Sons.

detail fabrication process of the MXene electrode precursor and
the corresponding actuators can be found in the literature.[27]
Their proposed composite electrodes showed much better
mechanical properties compared to those of their pure MXene
counterparts because PEDOT:PSS works as a highly flexible
matrix. As shown in Figure 9b, the pristine Ti3C2Tx electrodes
were very brittle and easily delaminated from the electrolyte
membrane during bending deformation, while the Ti3C2Tx/
PEDOT:PSS electrodes were much more flexible and retained
perfectly bonding with the electrolyte membrane, even in high
bending levels. Hence, the Ti3C2Tx/PEDOT:PSS electrodes
appeared to be more beneficial to ionic actuators when com-
pared with both their pristine MXene and pure PEDOT:PSS
counterparts. The cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy
(SEM) images reveal that, compared to their pure PEDOT:PSS
counterparts, Ti3C2Tx/PEDOT:PSS composite electrodes con-
tained more macroscale pores due to the intercalation of
PEDOT:PSS among Ti3C2Tx layers (Figure 9c). These pores
can potentially facilitate ions in the electrolyte membrane to
penetrate into the electrodes, and thereby boost the actuation
performance. Backed up with Raman spectroscopy results, the
researchers claimed that mixing Ti3C2Tx with PEDOT:PSS had
resulted in ionic interaction and enhanced the carrier density.
They also explained that the red-shifting of the prominent peak
of PEDOT:PSS at 1433 cm−1 had implied a phase change from
benzoid to quinoid, which had brought about more charge
delocalization and higher carrier density (Figure 9d). Further-
more, they suggested that the weakening and shifting of the
Ti3C2Tx peak from ≈160 to ≈230 cm−1 had indicated ionic inter-
action between Ti3C2Tx and -SO3H/-SO3− groups of PSS. The
authors expected that the special combination between Ti3C2Tx
and PEDOT:PSS would be very suitable for electrodes with high
conductivity and good capacitance, hence promoting the perfor-
mance of the final applications in soft robotics.
To check this assumption, the authors characterized the elec-
trochemical properties of their proposed electrodes using cyclic
voltammetry (CV), and were able to further reaffirm the bene-
fits of MXene for use as electrodes in ionic actuators. As can be
observed in Figure 9e, the Ti3C2Tx/PEDOT:PSS composite elec-
trodes showed a very high current density, resulting in excep-
tional high volumetric capacitance (932 F cm−3), almost four
times bigger than that of the pristine PEDOT:PSS electrodes.
Such a high level of electrochemical activity could remarkably
influence the output displacement of the actuators because it

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Figure 9. MXene/PEDOT:PSS composite as electrodes for dry-type electroactive ionic actuators: a) structure and mechanism, b) optical images,
c) cross-sectioned SEM images, d) interaction between Ti3C2Tx and PEDOT:PSS, e) CV curves, f) displacements, g) phase delay of samples with dif-
ferent ratios between MXene and PEDOT:PSS, and h) durability of actuators. Adapted with permission.[27] Copyright 2019, American Association for
the Advancement of Science.

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enhances the charge storage capacity and consequently forces
more ions to intercalate into the electrodes. The excellent actua-
tion performance of the synthesized electrodes also confirmed
this speculation. As expected, the results shown in Figure 9f
indicate that actuator used the T1PP2 electrodes, which were
their optimal Ti3C2Tx/PEDOT:PSS composition, generated very
high bending strain under 1 V alternating current (AC) voltage
with excitation frequency of 0.1 Hz. Furthermore, the MXene
electrodes reduced the phase delay of the responses of the actu-
ators with respect to the input stimulation, which is a critical
issue for dynamic inputs when considering a control system.
The results presented in Figure 9g indicate that Ti3C2Tx/
PEDOT:PSS composite electrodes reduced the phase delay by
half because the MXene electrodes accelerated charge and ion
movement through the electrodes. Besides this, the MXene-
based ionic actuator showed a remarkable enhancement in
cyclic stability and long durability such that it was able to retain
up to 97% of its initial displacement after continuous actuation
with 18 000 cycles (Figure 9h). This capability is crucial for the
implementation of ionic actuators in real-world applications.
Their proposed actuators enhanced almost all critical require-
ments (blocking forces, rise time, and bending strains) for fur-
ther applications and surpassed other counterpart materials,
especially graphene, which has been the most interesting mate-
rial of the last decade. Figure 10 compares some of the most
critical features of the MXene-based ionic actuators with those
of the best graphene-based counterparts. Low blocking force
is a key issue of soft ionic actuators. Il-Kwon Oh et al., using
MoS2/graphene composite electrodes, have reported one of the
highest blocking forces of graphene-based actuators.[29] How-
ever, as can be seen in Figure 10a,b, these values for MXene-
based actuators were almost 2.5 times higher than those of
MoS2/graphene-based actuators. The maximum blocking force
for the MXene-based actuator surpasses those of all the other
materials listed in Table 3, regardless of the different applied
voltages. For example, despite a two-time lower amplitude of
applied voltage, the MXene-based actuator had blocking forces
that is clearly higher than the second highest value, that of
the 3D graphene-CNT-nickel-based actuator. Other influential
parameters of ionic actuators are rising time and back relaxa-
tion, both of which are examined by applying direct current
(DC) stimulation. The rising time is defined as the time taken
by an actuator to reach its maximum displacement when stim-
ulated by DC excitation. This parameter is important because it
determines the response speed of actuators in a control system
and indicates how fast the charge storage and ion intercalation
occur in the electrodes. As can be observed in Figure 10c, the
MXene-based electrode swiftly responded to the input stimula-
tion and achieved a rising time of only one second, which is far
better than those of many graphene-based actuators, with the
second highest value being five seconds (sulfur and nitrogen
codoped reduced graphene electrode, Table 3). Note that the
rise time of 0.2 s is for single-ion PSS-b-PMB block copolymer
electrolyte, which is an electrolyte membrane by far better than
Nafion as clearly demonstrated in ref. [119], hence unsuitable
to compare with MXene-Nafion actuators.[119] Furthermore,
the back relaxation is almost identical among all graphene-
based actuators, but has not been observed for MXene-based
actuators, as evident in Figure 10c,d. While back relaxation
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started to noticeably appear for the MoS2/graphene electrodes
at 0.3 V and rapidly increased at 0.4 V, this phenomenon did
not occur for the MXene-based actuator up to 1 V.[27,29] In fact,
the bending strain for MXene even kept increasing while the
applied voltage was stable (Figure 10c), which can be explained
by the fact that the capacitances of MXene electrodes in some
electrolytes increase and finally reach maximum, steady
values.[27,57] This steady capacitance could eventually result in
a stable bending strain, a saturated value. Ti3C2Tx paper (single
or few-layer) electrodes have higher and more stable capaci-
tances than those of multilayer MXene electrodes.[57] Therefore,
single and few-layer MXene sheets could induce better perfor-
mances without back and/or increasing relaxations. Besides all
these parameters, generated bending strain is the most impor-
tant determining factor of actuation performance. Il-Kwon Oh
et al. reported among the highest bending strains of graphene-
electrode actuators at very low voltages.[22] However, as is shown
in Figure 10e,f, the MXene-based actuator achieved higher
bending strain in the entire range of applied voltage.[22,27] The
data summarized in Table 3 clearly suggest that the strain of
the MXene-based actuator exhibited among the highest possible
values, better than those of all other electrode materials listed
in the table, regardless of the different applied voltages. At 1 V
and 0.1 Hz, the bending strain for MXene-based actuators
is 155% higher than the second highest value (that of MoS2/
graphene).[27,29] The excellent performances of MXene-based
actuators strongly indicate the superior qualities of MXenes,
demonstrating the potential of MXenes in the field of actuators
and for further applications like soft robotics, smart devices,
sensors, and so on.
2.2.2. MXene-Cellulose Composites for Electrothermal Actuators
Taking advantage of the excellent electrical and thermal conduc-
tivities, and the hydrophilicity of MXenes, Pooi See Lee et al.
introduced another electroactive actuator based on MXene-
cellulose composites, as presented in Figure 11.[28] Different
from previous ionic actuators, this electrothermal actuator has
a bilayer structure, with an MXene-cellulose composite as an
active layer and a porous polycarbonate (PC) membrane as an
inert layer (Figure 11a,b). Briefly, Ti3C2Tx prepared by etching
Ti3AlC2 with LiF/HCl solution was mixed with cellulose nanofi-
brils in water to form a MXene-cellulose composite ink, which
was directly coated by filtration on a porous PC membrane and
dried to produce the MXene-cellulose/PC actuators. More detail
information on preparing the MXene, the MXene-cellulose ink,
and the actuators is available in the literature.[28] While ionic
actuators bend due to migration of ions under the influence of
external electrical fields, this electrothermal actuator deforms
because of dimensional mismatch between the active and inert
layers. Because the active layer changes volume as a result of
reversible moisture adsorption due to the temperature fluc-
tuation caused by electrothermal heating, the water uptake of
the active layer plays a crucial role in actuation performance.
Interestingly, the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra
in Figure 11c indicate that combining MXene with cellulose
increased the amount of absorbed water because the composite
was more hydrophilic than MXenes. This fact could favor the
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Figure 10. Performances of MXenes-based electroactive ionic actuators in comparison with other materials: blocking forces of actuators used a) MXene
and b) pMoS2-nSNrGO; back relaxation and rise times of actuators used c) MXene and d) pMoS2-nSNrGO; bending strains of actuators used e) MXene
and f) GCN-NG. Insets (a), (c), and (e) are adapted with permission.[27] Copyright 2019, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Insets
(b) and (d) are adapted with permission.[29] Copyright 2019, John Wiley and Sons. Inset (f) is adapted with permission.[22] Copyright 2018, John Wiley
and Sons.

target application that requires high-volume expansion/com-
pression. One reason for the larger water uptake could be the
abundant hydroxyl groups of the cellulose nanofibrils. More-
over, the FTIR results prove that heteroatom functional groups
on the surfaces of MXene sheets give reliable compatibility to
the cellulose nanofibrils by forming dynamic hydrogen bonding
between the two components. Figure 11d illustrates the detailed
mechanism. Accordingly, the active MXene-cellulose layer
functioned as a heater that converted electrical energy to heat
via the Joule heating effect, which induced volume shrinkage
of the composite layer due to water desorption and volume
expansion of the PC membrane due to high temperature.
This dimensional difference between the two layers finally led
to bending deformation, which minimized interfacial stress

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Table 3. MXenes for electroactive ionic actuators in comparison with other materials.

Electrode materials Electrolyte materials Blocking force (DC Voltage), mN Rise time, s Strain (AC voltage, frequency), %
[27]
Ti3C2Tx MXene/PEDOT:PSS Nafion/EMImBF4 4.71 (1.0 V) 1 1.36 (1.0 V, 0.1 Hz)
BP-CNTs/CNTs[25] PVdF-PFP/EMImBF4 3.32 (1.5 V) – 1.67 (2.5 V, 0.1 Hz)
MWCNT/rGO[92] PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4 0.41 (2.0 V) – 0.07 (2.0 V, 0.1 Hz)
MWCNT/PEDOT:PSS[135] TPU/EMImBF4 1.43 (2.5 V) – 0.64 (2.5 V, 0.1 Hz)
pMoS2-nSNrGO/PEDOT:PSS[29] Nafion/EMImBF4 0.25 (1.0 V) 10 0.88 (1.0 V, 0.1 Hz)
SWCNT/PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4[82] PSS-b-PMB/HMImPF6 – 50 0.98 (1.0 V, 0.025 Hz)
SWCNT/PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4[119] PSS-b-PMB/Imidazole 0.30 (1.0 V) 0.2 0.45 (1.0 V, 0.5 Hz)
[93]
SWCNT/PEDOT:PSS/EMImBF4 PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4 – – 0.57 (2.0 V, 0.05 Hz)
Th-SNrGO/PEDOT:PSS[23] SPBI/EMImBF4 1.26 (2.0 V) – 0.36 (1.0 V, 0.1 Hz)
Th-SNrGO/PEDOT:PSS[37] PS-b-PSS/EMImBF4 0.27 (2.0 V) 5 0.56 (1.0 V, 0.1 Hz)
Graphdiyne/PVdF/EMImBF4[17] PVdF/EMImBF4 3.37 (2.5 V) – 0.78 (2.5 V, 0.1 Hz)
[24]
g-CN/PVdF/EMImBF4 PEO-NBR/EMImBF4 0.93 (4.0 V) 100 0.93 (3.0 V, 0.002 Hz)
BS-COF-C900/PEDOT:PSS[118] Nafion/EMImBF4 – 0.62 (0.5 V, 0.1 Hz)
3D G-CNT-Ni/PEDOT:PSS[117] G-CNT-Ni/Nafion/EMImBF4 4.53 (2.0 V) – 0.52 (1.0 V, 0.1 Hz)
[22]
3D GCN-NG/PEDOT:PSS Nafion/EMImBF4 2.45 (2.0 V) – 0.52 (0.5 V, 0.1 Hz)
N-doped carbon/PEDOT:PSS[128] Nafion/EMImBF4 1.00 (2.0 V) – 0.53 (0.5 V, 0.1 Hz)
SWCNT/Polyaniline/PVdF-HFP/ PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4 – – 0.72 (2.0 V, 0.1 Hz)
EMImBF4[134]
Graphene mesh/NrGO/Nafion[40] Nafion/EMImBF4 0.30 (1.0 V) 7.5 –
TiC/PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4[88] PVdF-HFP/EMImBF4 – – 0.62 (2.0 V, 0.005 Hz)

between the two layers. In the current actuators, cellulose
played an important role because the presence of hydrophilic
cellulose between MXene interlayers creates rapid speeds of
water adsorption/desorption when actuators are exposed to
stimulants. Surface morphological analysis shows that MXene
nanosheets were uniformly wrapped with cellulose nanofibers
because hydrogen bonding tightly bound the two components
together (Figure 11e). The fibrous morphology of cellulose
nanofibrils with nanosized diameters, and the porous nature of
PC can also be seen in Figure 11f,g. It was believed that the
presence of pores in the PC membrane helped with easy water
transportation and correspondingly enhanced the actuation
performance. As shown in Figure 11h, the MXene-cellulose/PC
actuator was able to lift up or form a U shape when connected
to an electrical source. The actuation performances of this actu-
ator were studied by varying the applied electric potential up to
5.1 V. The temperature of the MXene-cellulose composite was
proportional to the electrical potential amplitude. Therefore,
with increase in applied potential amplitude, the MXene-cel-
lulose/PC actuator showed a linear decrease of bending angle
because the MXene-cellulose composite released more water,
and hence contracted more. This relationship between potential
amplitude and bending angle enables the actuators to be easily
controlled. The lowest bending angle of 33° was achieved at
5.1 V. Increasing voltage further resulted in no better perfor-
mance because maximum desorption of water molecules from
the interface layers had been reached. Since numerous mate-
rials can replace cellulose and many other MXenes can take
over for Ti3C2Tx, the future of MXenes in electrothermal actua-
tors could be very promising.
2.2.3. MXene Electrodes for Electrochemical Actuators
While many materials, including graphene, MoS2, CNT,
and conducting polymers have been intensively used in
electrochemical actuators, MXenes are newcomers in this
field.[21,26,33,45,46,79,80,120,121] The mechanism for such actuators
is straightforward. For many conducting polymers, oxidative
and reductive reactions occur, converting these polymers into
polyions.[45,46,79,80,120] These charged materials absorb molecules
and/or ions from the surrounding environment and change
their volumes. These actuators exhibit different motions
depending on their structures: single layer induces linear in-
plane strain, bilayer, and trilayer show bending motions.[121,122]
Bilayer and trilayer structures contain one inert and one or two
active layers (insets in Figure 12a,d). In most cases, these actua-
tors operate in liquid electrolytes (Figure 12a).[21,45,46,79,120] How-
ever, if the middle layer in the trilayer structure is a polymer
electrolyte membrane, the corresponding actuators can work in
air (Figure 12d).[26,123] Building on the benefits of the previous
study, Yu Gao et al. first reported Ti3C2Tx-based electrochemical
actuators, both bilayer and trilayer structures (Figure 12a,d).[26]
These two structures were made of Ti3C2Tx flexible free-
standing films, which were prepared by vacuum filtering the
MXene suspension. More detail information relating to MXene
synthesis and actuator fabrication was presented in the litera-
ture.[26] The mechanism of MXene-based actuators is similar
to those used in other 2D materials (graphene, MoS2).[21,33]
Accordingly, charging of the active layers results in reversible
ion intercalation/deintercalation. The authors selected Ti3C2Tx
because of its stability. In the bilayer structure, a Ti3C2Tx

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Figure 11. MXene/cellulose composite as conducting and active layers for electrothermal actuators: a) structure), b) mechanism, c) optical image,
d) RTIR spectra of MXene, cellulose, and the composite, SEM images of e) MXene-cellulose composites, f) cellulose film, and g) PC filter membrane,
h) bending while connected to voltages of humidity-responsive actuator. Adapted with permission.[28] Copyright 2019, The Authors, some rights
reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial
License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

MXene film was attached to Scotch tape. The actuator was
dipped into 1 m H2SO4 solution; and performance was tested
by applying potentials from −0.8 to +0.2 V versus a silver wire
at various scan rates via three-electrode configurations. The
results are presented in Figure 12a–c. The H2SO4 electrolyte
readily produces proton H+ for reversible redox reaction during
the charge and discharge cycles of electrochemical processes.
Deformation of the MXene strip was due to the intercalation/
deintercalation of the proton during electrochemical process,
which changes the interlayer spacing of the MXene structure.

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Figure 12. MXenes applied to wet-type electroactive actuators: MXene/tape actuator a) optical image of actuator under −0.8 V, b) curvature according
to applied potentials, c) curvature and strain according to scan rate; MXene/PVA-H2SO4/MXene actuator d) optical image of actuator under 0.6 V,
e) curvature according to applied potentials, f) curvature and strain according to scan rate. Adapted with permission.[26] Copyright 2019, American
Chemical Society.

An optical image showing the deformation of Ti3C2Tx/tape
actuator in 1 m H2SO4 at −0.8 V and 2 mV s−1 was provided in
Figure 12a and related proton intercalation/deintercalation was
presented schematically in the figure inset. It was also reported
that the curvature deformation of the MXene/tape strip was
not linear in terms of applied potential, shown some hysteresis
between charge and discharge, as illustrated in Figure 12b. As
revealed in the figure, negligible changes of curvature occurred
when the potential varied from −0.3 to 0.2 V, while prominent
changes happened between −0.8 and −0.3 V. The MXene/tape
bilayer actuator also showed a decrease in curvature deforma-
tion with increase in scan rate (2–100 mV s−1). These observed
actuating results correlated well with the CV and XRD results
of free standing Ti3C2Tx MXene. The expected decrease of strain
with decrease of bending curvature due to increase of scan
rate is also reported in Figure 12c, which confirmed that the
bending of Ti3C2Tx is closely related to its electrochemical prop-
erties. The highest strain of about 0.29% was reported under
2 mV s−1 with a change of around 0.08 mm−1 of the bending
curvature. Actuation performance decreased with the increase
of the oscillation frequency from 1 mHz to 1 Hz. The authors
indicated that for the bilayer structure, the MXene-based elec-
trochemical actuator had showed good performances compa-
rable with those of graphene. For the dry type trilayer actuator,
two Ti3C2Tx MXene films sandwiched a poly(vinyl alcohol)
(PVA)-H2SO4 electrolyte membrane with good adhesion. The
actuator performance was tested by CV (potential: −0.8 to
+0.2 V and scan rate: 1–100 mV s−1) and the results are shown
in Figure 12d–f. Accordingly, while one advantage of the trilayer
dry actuator is that it can be used in air, its overall performance
was diminished as compared to its the bilayer counterpart. The
typical curvature deformation is shown in Figure 12d at 0.6 V
and 2 mV s−1; the inset is a schematic of proton intercalation/
deintercalation in terms of applied potential. Decreased actu-
ating performance can be explained by the decline of ionic
movement (here protons) in the solid structure, which dropped
again with the increase of scan rate, as shown in Figure 12e.
In contrast to the bilayer wet actuator (Figure 12b), the trilayer
dry actuator showed symmetric curvature deformations when
potential changed from −0.6 to +0.6 V (Figure 12e). The reason
for this was thought to be the symmetric configuration of the
trilayer actuator. Changes of curvature deformation and strain
with change of scan rate of the dry actuator were explored; both
curvatures and strains are much lower than those of the wet
actuator (Figure 12c,f). For example, at 2 mV s−1, the curvature
and strain were about 0.032 mm−1 and 0.23%, which are about
40% and 80% smaller, respectively, than those values of the
wet type bilayer actuators. Although the performance of this
dry actuator was quite low, it can be increased in the future by
using bigger cations instead of proton and better solid electro-
lyte systems; this is because it has been proven that MXenes
enable many cations with different sizes to intercalate between
adjacent layers.[57]
2.2.4. MXenes for Photothermal Actuators
Photothermal actuators have been fabricated with many 2D
materials (MoS2, Boron nitride, graphitic carbon nitride, gra-
phene) and CNT.[13,18,35,101–103,105,124] In the present application,
these materials function as black objects that can harvest and
transform energy from electromagnetic waves into heat. The

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Figure 13. MXenes applied to photothermal actuators: a) XRD patterns according to NIR intensity, and b) corresponding d-spacing, c) optical images
of actuator responded to NIR light, d) temperature according to light-shining time, e) bending angle according to light-shining time, f) static force and
strain. Adapted with permission.[28] Copyright 2019, The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement
of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

increased temperature causes deformation due to thermal
expansion and/or desorption of small molecules like water. As
discussed previously, MXenes have high thermal conductivity;
they also are excellent at absorbing light and converting it to
heat, together with hydrophilic and able to adsorb moisture.
Therefore, they were successfully applied to photothermal
actuators, as reported in Figure 13.[28] Interaction between these
materials and near-infrared (NIR) irradiation was investigated
via XRD; the corresponding diffraction patterns are presented in
Figure 13a. Mixing cellulose nanofibrils with MXene decreased
the crystalline structure of MXene. Moreover, the peak shift
of MXene in MXene-cellulose composite is attributed to the
hydrogen bonds between the two components, which could
increase the interlayer spacing between the MXene nano sheets.
When NIR was illuminated on the MXene-cellulose composite,
the diffraction peak of MXene shifted to the right, indicating
moisture loss and reduction in MXene sheet interlayer spacing,
finally resulting in contraction of the materials. As the NIR
intensity was increased, the d-spacing of the MXene-cellulose/
PC actuator was reduced (Figure 13b). Figure 13c shows the
photothermal actuation of MXene-cellulose/PC device under
NIR irradiation with the MXene-cellulose strip faced downward
(13c, top) and upward (13c, bottom). As shown in Figure 13d,
NIR irradiation had almost no effect on the temperature profile
of the cellulose/PC composite. In contrast, the light-to-heat con-
version ability can be seen at 80 mW cm−2 increased the tem-
perature of MXene/PC and MXene-cellulose/PC combinations.
For the MXene-cellulose/PC, the maximum temperature was
reached faster; this is attributed to the compact structure of the
MXene-cellulose film with hydrogen bonding between MXene
nanosheets and cellulose nanofibrils. Figure 13e reveals that
the MXene-cellulose/PC actuator was able to bend about 169°
from flat state (180o) to an angle of 11o within 6.5 s when irradi-
ated with NIR light with an intensity of 80 mW cm−2. However,
the MXene/PC actuator responded with a much smaller angle
change and over a longer period of time. It was suggested that
the cellulose nanofibrils in the MXene-cellulose had provided
the robustness needed for larger angle change and facilitate
faster actuation because of the higher moisture desorption capa-
bility. The five-time actuation reversibility of the MXene-cellu-
lose/PC and MXene/PC actuators under NIR light illumination
was studied by clamping the actuator to a mechanical analyzer
with a prestrain of 0.15% (Figure 13f). The results show that
the static force generated by the analyzer to maintain constant
strain of 0.15% for MXene-cellulose/PC actuator was higher
than that for MXene/PC, indicating quick water evaporation
and shrinkage of the actuator containing cellulose nanofibrils.
Moreover, it was found that photothermal actuation under NIR
was repeatable, which could result in good durability for actua-
tors. These photoactuators were successfully applied to smart
devices, which will be discussed in the following section.
Besides previous photoactuators that worked in air, Feng
Chen et al. reported floating photoactuators based on supe-
rhydrophobic Ti3C2Tx MXenes (Figure 14).[125] Briefly, super-
hydrophobic Ti3C2Tx was prepared by etching Ti3AlC2 MAX
powder with 50 wt% HF solution, then delaminating with 25
wt% tetrapropylammonium hydroxide, and finally treating
with 1.43 wt% fluorinated alkyl silane in ethanol. The obtained
MXene solution was directly drop-coated onto the both sides of
a filter paper, dried, and cut into designed shapes to generate
the floating photoactuators. As previously mentioned, con-
ventionally hydrophilic MXenes can absorb electromagnetic
waves and convert them into heat. To suppress the hydrophi-
licity, but to take advantage of the heat conversion characteristic

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Figure 14. MXenes applied to photothermal actuators: a,b) temperature of MXene-coated paper while switching light, c) water contact angle (CA)
and sliding angle (SA) of MXene-coated paper according to light-shining time, light-driven motions of MXene-coated paper under light shining d) linear
motion, e) turning propulsion, f) force illustration according to the shining position. Adapted with permission.[125] Copyright 2019, Royal Society of
Chemistry.

for use in floating photoactuators, the authors modified
MXene to make it superhydrophobic by incorporation of
fluorinated alkyl silane into the multi-layered/delaminated
MXene (m-Ti3C2Tx/d-Ti3C2Tx). In addition to use in actua-
tors, many potential applications of MXenes could be possible
via hydrophobic modification, because this is a good method
to improve the stability for surface oxidation, which is other-
wise unavoidable in aqueous or atmospheric conditions. More-
over, well-defined superhydrophobic surfaces have also been
easily fabricated on various substrates by directly spraying the
as-prepared MXene coating solution. The hydrophobic MXenes
demonstrated excellent photothermal behavior. According to
the results presented in Figure 13a, NIR irradiation at 1 W cm−2
induced the photothermal conversion efficiency of 30.3%,
which is better than those of MoS2, SnS, and black phosphorus
quantum dots. Fast equilibrium temperature was established
between 20 and 115 °C in less than 3 min of NIR laser irra-
diation (808 nm and 1.0 W cm−2). The equilibrium was stably
repeated over five cycles, which suggests no material deterio-
ration in the testing conditions (Figure 14b). The MXene film
also showed superhydrophobic characteristics, with high con-
tact angle of 168.8° and low sliding angle of 8.7°. The results
in Figure 14c prove the stability of the hydrophobic MXenes
because the contact and sliding angles remained unchanged for
50 min of NIR illumination. Because of their superhydropho-
bicity and high photothermal-conversion efficiency, the modi-
fied Ti3C2Tx MXenes were successfully applied to make floating
photoactuators. The movements of the actuators can be attrib-
uted to the generation of local heating and surface tension gra-
dient when light energy is transformed into heat energy. This
tension moves the object away from the irradiation position.
According to the paper, the designed triangle shaped actuator
showed fast light-induced linear motion due to the creation of
fast local heating of Ti3C2Tx MXene by NIR light irradiation
(Figure 14d,f). Moreover, the trajectories of the actuators were
easily controlled via simple changes of the irradiation position.
For example, left and right rotational motions were successfully
demonstrated, as shown in Figure 14e,f. These impressive dem-
onstrations indicate that modifications can widen the appli-
cation range of MXenes, to not only actuators, but also other
devices.
2.2.5. MXenes for Humidity-Responsive Actuators
The basic principle of humidity-responsive actuators is to
change shape with changes of RH. 2D materials like graphene
show high sensitivity toward moisture, and hence could be
good candidates for humidity-responsive actuators.[16] Gener-
ally, a humidity-responsive actuator consists of a bilayer com-
posite structure having both a hygroscopic part as an active
component and an inert part as a passive film. The hygro-
scopic active part contains free volume on its structure that,
depending on the moisture content in the surrounding, can
physically adsorb water molecules and correspondingly change
its physical appearance in terms of volume change. This leads
to volume mismatch, with the residual inert part of the actu-
ator generating interfacial stress between the layers, resulting
bending deformations. Therefore, the bending performance of
a humidity-responsive actuator is largely dependent on the rate
of water adsorption/desorption of the active layer due to the
changes of external humidity.

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As previously determined, 2D crystalline MXenes have enor-
mous potential for use as the active part in humidity-responsive
actuators due to their abundant polar functional groups and
massive free spacing among MXene nanosheets. These surfi-
cial functional groups can easily adsorb moisture by hydrogen
bonding, with the amount dependent on the RH; they thus
induce increases in the d-spacing of the 2D MXene nanosheets
without altering its crystal structure (XRD pattern inset in
Figure 15d shows d-spacing shifted from 11.98 to 12.21 nm
while RH increased from 44% to 97%).[14] Therefore, small vari-
ations of humidity can produce large bending displacement,
and MXenes have been readily utilized for humidity-responsive
actuators. Lee and co-workers developed a bilayer humidity-
responsive actuator using a hygroscopic Ti3C2Tx-cellulose com-
posite as the active layer and a PC membrane as the inert part
(Figure 15a–c).[28] Cellulose was used to enhance the sensitivity
of Ti3C2Tx to RH because cellulose has plentiful hydroxyl
groups and was reported to be of use in humidity-responsive
actuators.[126] To fabricate the patterned actuator, a strip of
Ti3C2Tx-cellulose composite was deposited on the PC membrane
by filtration. As can be seen in Figure 15a, the actuator was
almost in a flat state at a high RH of 70%. However, when RH
was reduced to 10%, the actuator bent. The MXene and cellulose
nanofibrils contain hydrophilic functional groups that shrink at
low moisture content. On the other hand, the PC membrane
is passive in the face of humid changes. This difference in
hygroscopic property between the Ti3C2Tx-cellulose composite
and the PC membrane resulted in an unbalanced volumetric
change, and the generated compression force in the Ti3C2Tx-cel-
lulose composite bent the actuator; the bending angle increased
as the RH reduced (Figure 15b,c). Sun and co-workers also
reported the successful fabrication of Ti3C2Tx-based humidity-
responsive actuators by simply coating a commercial MXene
aqueous solution onto a wire mesh (Figure 15d,e).[14] According
to the results shown in Figure 15d, the actuator progressively
bent with the increase in RH. The actuator also showed a fast
response of about 10 s and good stability, and the curvature
remained for five cycles (Figure 15e). Because many materials
can replace cellulose as co-absorbents, and other MXenes can
be used instead of Ti3C2Tx, actuation performance can be fur-
ther enhanced to levels much higher than those seen in these
pioneering actuators.
2.3. MXene-Based Soft Robotics and Smart Devices
Conventional robots based on solid and firm actuation sys-
tems are powerful for simple individual tasks, but unadapt-
able and dangerous for people to work together. Therefore,
they are expected to be replaced by more adaptable and safer
soft counterparts using compliant actuators. Realizing such a
desirable vision requires great advancements in soft actuators,
sensors, computing, and controlling systems.[107] Electroactive
ionic soft actuators could be a promising candidate because
many demonstrations have been reported, such as soft robots
(inspired by jellyfish, fish, fish fins, lobsters, inchworms, stick
insects, the human hand, and flowers), grappling robot, soft
fingers, etc.[22,29,118,127,128] In addition, electroactive ionic actua-
tors can self-sense, allowing them to monitor the bending
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deformation, which is also advantageous for soft robotic
applications.[115]
The recent introduction of MXenes to ionic actuators signifi-
cantly enhanced their performance because the blocking forces
and bending strains rank among the best (Table 3). These
impressive properties could significantly contribute to progress
in real engineering applications because these actuators have
been successfully applied to three kinds of “Kinetic Art Robots.”
Kinetic art is a type of art in which the artwork contains
moving components. In most cases, the movement of com-
ponents is facilitated by conventional electromotors. However,
Il-Kwon Oh et al. proposed using soft actuators to provide the
power required to move artwork components. They utilized the
MXene-based ionic actuators to make three kinetic art pieces,
as displayed in Figure 16a–c. In the first design (Figure 16a),
they made an artificial narcissus flower that bloomed or closed
its petals by stimulating actuators in two opposite directions.
In another artwork, displayed in Figure 16b, they designed a
tree-branch hosting multiple artificial butterflies. The flapping
motions of the colorful wings of the butterflies were activated
by soft actuators, realizing a very nice and eye-catching kinetic
art piece. The last design they proposed was a modern art tree
made of thick wires. Under AC input stimulation, the leaves
of the tree moved slowly in different directions, as shown in
Figure 16c. For two of these art pieces (Figure 16a,b), the actua-
tors were used as artificial muscles to move the artwork com-
ponents, while in the other design (Figure 16c) the actuators
themselves were components of the art piece.[27]
Besides kinetic art robots, Pooi See Lee et al. implemented
MXene bilayer photothermal actuators in worm-like robots
and some smart devices.[46] As shown in Figure 16d, they made
worm-like robots by patterning the proposed MXene-cellulose
composite on a rectangular PC membrane. When exposed to
NIR light, the proposed robot shrunk and bent upward. When
NIR light was switched off, the MXene-cellulose composite
swelled as a result of adsorbing moisture from the environ-
ment and a larger force was generated by the wide strip, which
dragged the actuator forward. Therefore, cyclic NIR irradia-
tion was successfully used to make the worm-like robots crawl.
The crawling mechanism is highly dependent on the width
and position of the MXene-cellulose strips, in addition to the
light stimulation. The asymmetric pattern of the strips leads
to asymmetric deformation of the robot, which induces for-
ward crawling. Using the proposed actuators, the researchers
also made a smart switch that operated by light, as shown in
Figure 16e. The MXene-cellulose composite was deposited on a
PC membrane with a cross-like pattern (width of 5 and 10 mm).
While the wider strip deflected the membrane, the narrower
strip connected to (or disconnected from) the electrode to
close (or open) the circuit. This smart switch was then used to
turn on/off a watch by wireless NIR light.[28] Another applica-
tion of MXene-based actuators was demonstrated by Yu Gao
et al. As schematically shown in Figure 16f, using their elec-
trochemical actuators, they made two robotic arms. They suc-
cessfully showed that, with application of low input electrical
potential, the proposed robotic arms were able to grab, hold,
and release an object.[26] These initial studies and the proposed
preliminary devices prove the great potential of MXene-based
actuators. Intensive study will make it possible to exploit more
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Figure 15. MXenes applied to humidity-responsive actuators: MXene-cellulose-based actuators a) typical humid response, b) bending angle according
to RH, c) images of actuator at different humidity; mesh-structure MXene actuator d) curvature according to RH, e) responsive and recovery properties.
Insets (a), (b), and (c) are adapted with permission.[28] Copyright 2019, The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association
for the Advancement of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). Insets (d) and (e) are
adapted with permission.[14] Copyright 2019, John Wiley and Sons.

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Figure 16. MXenes-based actuators applied to soft robotics: a) origami-inspired narcissus flower robot, b) butterflies on a branch, c) leaves on
trees, d) worm-like robot, e) smart light-controlled switch, f) robotic arms. Insets (a), (b), and (c) are adapted with permission.[27] Copyright 2019,
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Insets (d) and (e) are adapted with permission.[28] Copyright 2019, The Authors, some rights
reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial
License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). Inset (f) is adapted with permission.[26] Copyright 2019, American Chemical Society.

of the extraordinary properties of MXenes by extending the
scope of applications to many different MXenes and combining
MXenes with other materials like graphene and CNT. There-
fore, expected advances in actuation performance could be used
to realize more complex and useful applications, including soft
robotics and smart devices.
3. Conclusion and Future Direction
MXenes are specific 2D materials with many valuable prop-
erties that can benefit actuators. These exceptional proper-
ties are better than those of many other 2D nanomaterials
in making high-performance actuators. Therefore, MXenes
can respond to many stimulants, and hence can be exploited
in electroactive ionic, electrochemical, electrothermal, photo-
thermal, and humid actuators. Until now, electroactive ionic,
electrochemical, and electrothermal actuators have been devel-
oped utilizing unique and excellent material properties such as
cation and ionic liquid intercalations, high capacitance, supe-
rior electrical and thermal conductivities, and good dispersion
in water and organic solvents. Photothermal actuators employ
excellent electromagnetic wave absorption, superior thermal
conductivity, and hydrophilicity. Humidity-responsive actuators
employ polar functional groups and hydrophilicity of MXenes.
Applying MXenes to these types of actuators showed fasci-
nating performance. Especially, electroactive ionic actuators
showed great improvement with the addition of MXenes; the
performance surpassed those of most actuators reported in
the literature in this field. The excellent performances of these
MXene-based actuators enabled them to be utilized in many
types of soft robotics and smart devices. In addition, MXenes
have promising potential for use in magnetic, dielectric elas-
tomer, multi-stimuli actuators, and stimuli-responsive dynamic

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photonic crystals, etc.[129,130] Therefore, these important prop-
erties and the attractive actuation performance of MXenes,
together with the more than thirty different types of MXenes
mentioned in the literature, indicate the bright future of these
2D materials in the field of stimuli-responsive actuators.
Although MXenes have been intensively utilized in many
applications, they are newcomers in the field of actuators.
Therefore, realization of the desired future will require
improvement of the synthesis, manipulation, stability, and
fabrication process of MXenes, applications of different
MXenes, combinations of MXenes with other materials, and
assembly of MXenes in complex macrostructures for better
properties and more functionalities. However, current syn-
thetic routes involve toxic acid treatments and the oxidation
of MXene is a severe problem for most applications, including
actuators.[131] Therefore, safe synthetic methods that do not
use fluoride to prepare MXenes, and proper processes to fabri-
cate actuators that can avoid or reduce oxidation, are desirable.
More stable MXene materials and safe fabricating processes
will greatly enhance the stability of actuators, finally leading
to further applications such as in the field of sort robotics and
smart devices. Although about thirty types of MXenes have
been synthesized, most applications have intensively focused
on Ti3C2Tx. One reason for this is that other MXenes oxidize
easily and quickly. Therefore, solving the oxidation problem or
protecting MXenes from oxidizing could bring more MXenes
into use in stimuli-responsive actuators, resulting in enhanced
actuation performance because of more choices for selecting
suitable MXenes for a target actuator application. In addition,
MXene sheets with 2D structure and large surface area can be
good substrates to grow other materials such as MoS2, which
can increase capacitance and hence can result in excellent
actuation performance of electro-ionic actuators.[29] For electro-
active ionic actuators, MXenes were mixed with PEDOT:PSS.
Although PEDOT:PSS is a good binder and contributes to con-
ductivity, its narrow electrochemical potential window hinders
work at high voltage. Because electrical sources are both the
stimulus and the energy supply, high input voltages are per-
fect for high-performance actuators. Therefore, CNT and ionic
conducting polymer binders should replace PEDOT:PSS.[31]
For real applications like soft robotics, strong blocking forces
are critical. This desired characteristic could be obtained by
combining MXenes with carbon cloth.[132] In this combination,
MXenes could function as highly capacitive active sites inter-
acting with ions and electrically conductive carbon cloth could
support high-strength actuators. So far most of the reported
MXene-based actuators have been used MXenes in simple
configurations like using freestanding pure MXene films in
electrochemical actuators and directly casting from liquid pre-
cursors in electro-ionic, electrothermal, photothermal, and
humidity-responsive actuators. Therefore, these actuators
with improved performances and diverse shapes can be real-
ized if some complex MXene configurations such as vertically
aligned crystalline is used.[49] Since most actuators contain
many components, bonding between MXenes and other com-
ponents should be improved to enhance actuation durability,
which is a key requirement for any applications in reality.
While the explanation of MXene properties benefiting actua-
tors can be helpful to choose suitable MXenes, the expression
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of actuation mechanisms can imply requirements for MXene
composites. For example, because electro-ionic actuators
require an electrode system with good electrical and ionic con-
ductivities, MXene sheets with big sizes and few defects for
good electrical conductivity, few or single layers for fast ionic
conductivity are desirable. Therefore this paper could be a
guideline to select suitable types of MXenes, to choose appro-
priate synthesis, and to develop reasonable MXene composite
systems for the next generation of actuators, especially electro-
active ionic actuators, which will be adequate for use in real
engineering applications.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Creative Research Initiative Program
(2015R1A3A2028975) funded by the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF).
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Keywords
2D materials, MXenes, soft robotics, stimuli-responsive actuators
Received: November 14, 2019
Revised: February 15, 2020
Published online:
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