A versatile ethanolic approach to metal aerogels (Pt, Pd, Au, Ag, Cu and Co)

Abstract

We present a universal one-step approach to generate metal aerogels at room and at dry ice cold temperature, abbreviated as DICE. Performing the synthesis completely in an ethanolic phase allows for the formation of pure noble (Pt, Pd, Au and Ag) and less noble metal (Cu and Co) gels in a remarkably short period of time compared to the widespread aqueous synthesis strategies. Furthermore, three-dimensional disordered, porous networks were obtained for each system with high surface areas of 860 m² mol⁻¹ for Ag up to 5470 m² mol⁻¹ for Co. Additionally, it is shown that the low reaction temperature of −70 °C enables the control of the gelation time without losing the structural characteristics. Moreover, with respect to industrial applications, this facile, stabilizer-free synthesis yields large amounts of materials using highly concentrated precursor solutions.