Transforming Bulk Metals into Metallic Nanostructures: A Liquid-Metal-Assisted Top-Down Dealloying Strategy with Sustainability

Herein, we propose a liquid-metal-assisted dealloying strategy to transform bulk metals into metallic nanostructures. Through dealloying of gallium (Ga)-based alloys, nanoporous metals with different dimensions (0D Au, 1D Ag, and 2D Cu) were successfully fabricated. Moreover, the sacrificial element (Ga) was efficiently recycled in the form of liquid Ga (L-Ga) and GaOOH with the recovery rate of up to 94.5%. The proposed strategy addresses the sustainability issues of conventional dealloying and paves a new way to fabricate nanostructured materials from bulk metals.