The time taken to remove the original (002) peak by electrochemical etching (tEE) and chemical etching (tCE) with HBF4 at temperatures between 35 and 50 °C was measured using the diminishing intensity of the (002) of the MAX phase (Figure ). It was found that both tEE and tCE decreased with increasing temperature. Yet, the effect of temperature was approximately twice as high for chemical etching time than for electrochemical etching. For instances, at 35 °C, tEE and tCE was observed to be 28 h and 60 h, respectively. By increasing the etching temperature to 50 °C, tEE and tCE reduces to 14 h and 30 h, respectively. Note that the etching time for chemical etching with HBF4 at 60 °C reported by Gentile et al. is only present as a reference and was not counted in the fitting. This difference in temperature dependence may be explained by the different etching mechanisms; the chemical etching with HBF4 relies solely on the decomposition of HBF4 to generate HF and the thermal energy to overcome the activation barrier in order to achieve the etching. Whereas, for the electrochemical etching with HBF4, the presence of voltage provides an additional driving force by increasing the fermi potential of the Aluminum in the MAX phases precursor, allowing the anodic dissolution of aluminum to occur without the generation of HF. Compared to solely chemical etching with HBF4, the extra reaction pathway provided by the electrochemical etching is concluded to be the main factor of the increased efficiency of etching at low temperatures. In addition, the electrolyte residue after electrochemical etching was dried by heating in a PTFE beaker. A white precipitate was formed after all the HBF4 residue was evaporated. The FTIR spectrum of the white precipitate corresponded to aluminium oxide, further confirming the anodic dissolution of aluminium during the etching (Figure ).