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Amorphous alloys for electrocatalysis: The significant role of the amorphous alloy structure

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Abstract

Amorphous alloys, also known as metallic glasses, are solid metallic materials having long-range disordered atomic structures. Compared to crystalline alloys, amorphous alloys not only have metallic characters, but also possess several distinct properties associated to the amorphous structure, such as isotropy, composition flexibility, unsaturated surface, etc. As a result, amorphous alloys offer a class of highly promising materials for catalyzing electrochemical reactions. In this minireview, the preparation, characterization and electrocatalytic performances of a variety of metallic amorphous alloy materials are summarized. The influences of the amorphous alloy structure on different electrochemical reactions are discussed. Finally, a summary on the advantages and challenges of amorphous alloys in electrocatalysis is provided, along with some perspectives about the future research directions.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of Singapore under Tier 1 RG115/18 and RG4/20, and Tier 2 T2EP10120-0009.

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  1. Xingyun Li and Weizheng Cai contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, Singapore, 637459, Singapore

    Xingyun Li, Weizheng Cai & Bin Liu

  2. Department of Biomaterials, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Xingyun Li

  3. Key Laboratory of Inorganic Nonmetallic Crystalline and Energy Conversion Materials, College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, 443002, China

    Dong-Sheng Li

  4. Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory for Soft Functional Materials, Department of Physics, Research Institute for Biomimetics and Soft Matter, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Jun Xu

  5. State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Huabing Tao

  6. Division of Chemical and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 21 Nanyang Link, Singapore, 637371, Singapore

    Bin Liu

Authors
  1. Xingyun Li
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  2. Weizheng Cai
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  3. Dong-Sheng Li
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  4. Jun Xu
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  5. Huabing Tao
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  6. Bin Liu
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Correspondence to Huabing Tao or Bin Liu.

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Li, X., Cai, W., Li, DS. et al. Amorphous alloys for electrocatalysis: The significant role of the amorphous alloy structure. Nano Res. 16, 4277–4288 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3682-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3682-7

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