Manipulating multimetallic effects: Programming size-tailored metal aerogels as self-standing electrocatalysts

Abstract

Metal aerogels are emerging porous materials composed entirely of nanostructured metals, which manifest broad prospects in diverse fields. Particularly, multimetallic aerogels (MMAs) receive increasing attention due to their widely tunable properties stimulated by the synergy of multiple metals. However, the investigation of multimetallic effects in MMAs is predominantly restricted to optimizing their application performances. Here, the untrivial multimetallic effects on the synthetic aspect are discovered, and the underlying mechanisms are unveiled, offering new perspectives for manipulating the sol-gel process and tuning the ligament size (d_L) of MMAs by designing the average bulk density (ρ_ab) and atomic radius (r_a) mismatch. Moreover, a sedimentation-based non-destructive method is established, which solves the long-lasting challenge of preparing intact metal-gel-based electrocatalysts and yields record-high performances toward alcohol oxidation reactions.