Based on an All-solution-processed MXene/Ag Nanowire Composite Electrode

 (From left) Se-ryong Park, MS-PhD integrated program; Sang-jun Park, MS-PhD integrated program; Professor Tae-Jun Ha

Professor Tae-Jun Ha’s research team (Department of Electronic Materials Engineering), in collaboration with Professor Joo-Hoon Kim from Kyung Hee University, developed an MXene/Ag nanowire composite electrode using spray coating and succeeded in implementing a high-performance mobile transparent heater that can generate heat using indoor solar cells without an external power source. This research was published in Applied Surface Science (IF: 6.7, JIF ranking: 97.6%), one of the top international journals in the field of materials science, by Elsevier, under the title 'Highly stable low-voltage operating mobile transparent heaters based on spray-coated MXene/silver nanowire nanocomposite electrodes powered by indoor solar cells.'

Recently, transparent heaters have gained attention for their potential applications in various fields, such as outdoor displays, avionics, and dehumidification and de-icing of automotive glass. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has primarily been used as a transparent electrode material due to its high optical transmittance and low sheet resistance. However, because of its relatively poor thermal response and heating rate, recent research has focused on using one-dimensional silver nanowires (Ag NWs) as an alternative. However, these low-dimensional transparent electrode materials have a significant issue with operational stability, as they tend to oxidize by reacting with oxygen and water molecules in the air when heat is generated in the transparent heater. Professor Tae-Jun Ha's research team (Department of Electronic Materials Engineering) successfully developed a high-performance transparent heater by using MXene, a 2D material with excellent electrical conductivity and thermal stability, as a protective layer and effectively combining it with a nanowire network through an optimized solution process, which both lowers sheet resistance and suppresses oxidation. The fabricated transparent heater not only replaces conventional ITO transparent electrodes but also generates heat exceeding 120°C at a voltage of 5V. It demonstrated high reliability even after 500 on/off cycles and maintained excellent operational stability with almost no performance degradation after generating heat continuously for 10 days. Additionally, in collaboration with Professor Joo-Hoon Kim from Kyung Hee University, they demonstrated the potential application of efficiently removing moisture using a high-performance mobile transparent heater powered by indoor solar cells, operating without an external power source.

Meanwhile, this research was supported by the Carbon Neutral Industrial Core Technology Development Project, supervised by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

, and the Basic Research Laboratory Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea, supervised by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. Professor Tae-Jun Ha's research team is currently conducting extensive research on next-generation electronic devices and renewable energy technologies based on advanced materials. They have published over 60 papers in SCI journals and hold more than 30 international and domestic patents related to low-dimensional functional composite materials.

Structure and transmittance of the MXene/Ag NWs composite electrode-based transparent heater, along with the demonstration results of the mobile transparent heater powered by indoor solar cells