Disturbance-Promoted Unconventional and Rapid Fabrication of Self-Healable Noble Metal Gels for (Photo-)Electrocatalysis

As an emerging class of porous materials, noble metal aerogels (NMAs) have drawn tremendous attention and displayed unprecedented potential in diverse fields. However, the development of NMAs is impeded by the fabrication methods because of their time- and cost-consuming procedures, limited generality, and elusive understanding of the formation mechanisms. Here, by revealing the self-healing behavior of noble metal gels and applying it in the gelation process at a disturbing environment, an unconventional and conceptually new strategy, i.e., a disturbance-promoted gelation method, is developed by introducing an external force field. It overcomes the diffusion limitation in the gelation process, thus producing monolithic gels within 1-10 min at room temperature, 2-4 orders of magnitude faster than for most reported methods. Moreover, versatile NMAs are acquired by using this method, and their superior (photo-)electrocatalytic properties are demonstrated for the first time in light of combined catalytic and optic properties.