Bo Guyue, Li Peng, Fan Yameng, Zhu Qiang, Xia Linlin, Du Yi, Dou Shi Xue, Xu Xun
Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
Electron Microscopy Center, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia.
Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Jun 23;12(13):2153. doi: 10.3390/nano12132153.
Functional and robust catalyst supports are vital in the catalysis field, and the development of universal and efficient catalyst support is essential but challenging. Traditional catalyst fabrication methods include the carbonization of ordered templates and high-temperature dehydration. All these methods involve complicated meso-structural disordering and allow little control over morphology. To this end, a eutectic GaInSn alloy (EGaInSn) was proposed and employed as an intermediate to fabricate low-dimensional ordered catalyst support materials. Owing to the lower Gibbs free energy of GaO compared to certain types of metals (e.g., Al, Mn, Ce, etc.), we found that a skinny layer of metal oxides could be formed and exfoliated into a two-dimensional nanosheet at the interface of liquid metal (LM) and water. As such, EGaInSn was herein employed as a reaction matrix to synthesize a range of two-dimensional catalyst supports with large specific surface areas and structural stability. As a proof-of-concept, AlO and MnO were fabricated with the assistance of LM and were used as catalyst supports for loading Ru, demonstrating enhanced structural stability and overall electrocatalytic performance in the oxygen evolution reaction. This work opens an avenue for the development of functional support materials mediated by LM, which would play a substantial role in electrocatalytic reactions and beyond.
功能强大且稳定的催化剂载体在催化领域至关重要，开发通用且高效的催化剂载体至关重要但具有挑战性。传统的催化剂制备方法包括有序模板的碳化和高温脱水。所有这些方法都涉及复杂的介观结构无序，并且对形态的控制很少。为此，提出了一种共晶GaInSn合金（EGaInSn）并将其用作中间体来制备低维有序催化剂载体材料。由于与某些类型的金属（例如Al、Mn、Ce等）相比，GaO的吉布斯自由能较低，我们发现可以在液态金属（LM）和水的界面处形成一层薄薄的金属氧化物并将其剥离成二维纳米片。因此，本文采用EGaInSn作为反应基质来合成一系列具有大比表面积和结构稳定性的二维催化剂载体。作为概念验证，在LM的辅助下制备了AlO和MnO，并用作负载Ru的催化剂载体，在析氧反应中表现出增强的结构稳定性和整体电催化性能。这项工作为开发由LM介导的功能载体材料开辟了一条途径，这将在电催化反应及其他领域发挥重要作用。
