Abstract Three-dimensional bicontinuous nanoporosity fabricated by dealloying can provide unique chemical properties in catalytic materials, which conventional nanoparticulate catalysts do not have. Although many solid elements in the periodic table have been fabricated as nanoporous materials by dealloying, technically important nanoporous boron has not been realized because of the poor diffusivity and high chemical stability of boron. Here we report a scalable top–down method to produce three-dimensional nanoporous boron by selectively leaching a less stable metal compound phase from rapidly solidified two-phase metal–boron alloys. The metalloid boron phase with relatively high chemical stability remains as the skeleton of a nanoporous structure. The resultant nanoporous boron with tunable pore sizes, and porosities, shows superior catalytic activities towards ammonia electrosynthesis. This work provides a new approach to fabricate nanoporous metalloids for a wide range of functional applications and brings boron, an important functional material, to the family of dealloyed nanoporous materials.

中文翻译：

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用于高效氨电合成的纳米多孔硼的可扩展合成

摘要 通过脱合金制备的三维双连续纳米孔隙可以为催化材料提供独特的化学性质，这是传统纳米颗粒催化剂所不具备的。虽然元素周期表中的许多固体元素已经通过脱合金制成纳米多孔材料，但由于硼的扩散性差和化学稳定性高，技术上重要的纳米多孔硼尚未实现。在这里，我们报告了一种可扩展的自上而下的方法，通过从快速凝固的两相金属-硼合金中选择性地浸出不稳定的金属化合物相来生产三维纳米多孔硼。具有较高化学稳定性的准金属硼相作为纳米多孔结构的骨架保留下来。所得纳米多孔硼具有可调的孔径和孔隙率，对氨电合成显示出优异的催化活性。这项工作提供了一种新的方法来制造用于广泛功能应用的纳米多孔准金属，并将硼这种重要的功能材料带入脱合金纳米多孔材料家族。