Sustainable and Greener Approach to the Fabrication of MXene Reinforced Bio-gum/Carbon Nanocomposites for Energy and Environmental Applications.

Natural polymeric architectures based on many versatile sources such as plant-derived gums are needed to address many of the critical challenges we face today in energy, clean water, health care, informatics defence, and security. These plant gums are valuable and useful as food additives, emulsifiers, encapsulators, and pharmaceutical ingredients. The MXenes (Mn+1XnTx) are 2D transition metal carbide/nitride or carbonitrides, which have shown exceptional physicochemical properties. The project aims in the formation of 2D membranes and 3D nanocomposites based on bonding tree bio-gum polymers and MXenes, their characterization and potential applications of in mainly energy and environment and other fields. In this context, tree gums such as gum arabic (GA), gum karaya (GK), and kondagogu gum (KG) could be ideal candidates for the fabrication of lightweight flexible structures with significant mechanical, thermal, conductivity, electrical and antibacterial properties.