Stable MXene Resistive Heaters for Extreme Environments

Resistive heaters or Joule heaters capable of reliable operation in extreme environments are critical for aerospace systems, terrestrial thermal systems, and environmental monitoring. However, conventional resistive heaters suffer from performance degradation at low temperatures, under vacuum conditions, or during prolonged operation due to material instability and resistance drift. In this paper, we report the development of a robust MXene-based (titanium carbide MXene or Ti3C2-MXene) resistive heater on ceramic substrate (Al2O3) covered with polymer, capable of stable operation across a wide ambient temperature range of −55°C to +60°C. The MXene heaters exhibit rapid Joule heating up to 200°C at a low power input of 5 W at ambient temperature and pressure. The MXene heaters exhibit fast thermal response (77 seconds) and recovery (97 seconds) times at 1 atm (ambient pressure) as well as efficient and repeatable temperature cycling. In stepwise power-to-failure tests, the polymer-covered heaters reached temperatures of 396°C under ambient pressure and 398°C under low-vacuum conditions, demonstrating the high thermal robustness of the protected MXene architecture. Systemic characterization under both low-vacuum and ambient pressure conditions demonstrates excellent operational stability and negligible resistance variation over extended testing durations. The MXene heating devices maintain consistent heating performance without observable degradation, highlighting the intrinsic electric and thermal robustness of polymer-covered MXene heaters. These results establish polymer-covered MXene resistive heaters as a promising platform for lowpower, high-performance thermal management systems in electronics, aerospace technologies, and other applications requiring reliable operation under harsh environmental conditions.