Issue 7, 2023

From amorphous to crystalline: a universal strategy for structure regulation of high-entropy transition metal oxides

Abstract

High-entropy materials (HEMs) exhibit extensive application potential owing to their unique structural characteristics. Structure regulation is an effective strategy for enhancing material performance. However, the fabrication of HEMs by integrating five metal elements into a single crystalline phase remains a grand challenge, not to mention their structure regulation. Herein, an amorphous-to-crystalline transformation route is proposed to simultaneously achieve the synthesis and structure regulation of high-entropy metal oxides (HEMOs). Through a facile hydrothermal technique, five metal sources are uniformly integrated into amorphous carbon spheres, which are transformed to crystalline HEMOs after calcination. Importantly, by controlling ion diffusion and oxidation rates, HEMOs with different structures can be controllably achieved. As an example, HEMO of the five first-row transition metals CrMnFeCoNiO is synthesized through the amorphous-to-crystalline transformation route, and structure regulation from solid spheres to core–shell spheres, and then to hollow spheres, is successfully realized. Among the structures, the core–shell CrMnFeCoNiO exhibits enhanced lithium storage performance due to the component and structural advantages. Our work expands the synthesis methods for HEMs and provides a rational route for structure regulation, which brings them great potential as high-performance materials in energy storage and conversion.

Graphical abstract: From amorphous to crystalline: a universal strategy for structure regulation of high-entropy transition metal oxides

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
02 Sep 2022
Accepted
11 Jan 2023
First published
11 Jan 2023
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 1787-1796

From amorphous to crystalline: a universal strategy for structure regulation of high-entropy transition metal oxides

D. Lai, L. Ling, M. Su, Q. Kang, F. Gao and Q. Lu, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 1787 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC04900G

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