Scientists have taken a big step forward in the design of nanomaterials that could withstand some of the harshest conditions in technology and industry.
A research team led by Babak Anasori, a professor of materials and mechanical engineering at Purdue University, has created ultra-thin two-dimensional materials that contain up to nine different metals in a single atomic sheet.
These materials belong to a family called MXenes (pronounced “max-eens”), first discovered in 2011.
MXenes are carbides and nitrides—chemicals made from carbon or nitrogen combined with metals—but in this case, they come in ultrathin layers only a nanometer thick, about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.
Their unique structure makes them highly conductive, water-friendly, and tunable for different purposes, meaning scientists can tailor them for tasks such as energy storage, next-generation electronics, or shielding from radiation.
In their new study, published in Science, Anasori’s team pushed MXenes to their limits by blending multiple metals into single sheets.
Working with colleagues from Vanderbilt University, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Institute of Microelectronics and Photonics in Poland, they successfully combined as many as nine transition metals into a single MXene sheet—an achievement never before realized.
The experiment allowed the team to explore the balance between two fundamental forces of chemistry: enthalpy, which favors order, and entropy, which pushes systems toward disorder. In simple terms, it was a way of testing how far atomic “mixing” could go before the material lost its ordered structure.
Anasori explained this with a food analogy. Imagine making a cheeseburger with ingredients like lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickles, and the patty. If you limit yourself to just a few ingredients, the layers always stack up in the same order. But if you toss in seven or more, the arrangement becomes unpredictable—the sandwich is still there, but every time it comes out differently. For MXenes, the “magic box” is a furnace heated to about 1,600°C (3,000°F), hot enough to fuse the atoms together.
With fewer than six metals, the materials stayed ordered, with atoms stacking in predictable ways. But once seven or more metals were added, the atoms fell into true disorder, producing what scientists call high-entropy materials. Remarkably, the team managed to synthesize nearly 40 different versions of these nanolayered structures, all the way from two-metal to nine-metal combinations.
Transforming these “parent” materials, known as MAX phases, into 2D MXenes revealed how order versus disorder influenced their electronic behavior and surface properties. These insights are key for tailoring nanomaterials to perform in extreme conditions.
Postdoctoral researcher Brian Wyatt, the first author of the study, said the findings help clarify how entropy and enthalpy interact in high-entropy materials. Understanding these processes, he explained, opens the door to engineering entirely new structures with custom-designed properties.
For Anasori’s lab, the ultimate goal is to build nanomaterials that can thrive where current ones fail. That means in extreme heat, freezing cold, deep space, or even high-radiation environments. Potential uses range from better batteries for electric vehicles in harsh climates, to aerospace materials that can endure both the vacuum of space and re-entry heat, to ultra-thin antennae for next-generation communication systems.
“We want to keep asking the ‘why not’ questions,” Anasori said. “Why not try new combinations of atoms to create materials that can do things no other materials can? The hope is to make discoveries that power the next generation of technologies, whether in clean energy, space exploration, or advanced electronics.”
By creating 2D nanomaterials with up to nine metals, the researchers have expanded the playground of possibilities.
Their work not only shows how far scientists can push the boundaries of material design, but also points to a future where custom-built nanostructures enable breakthroughs in some of the toughest environments humanity seeks to explore.
