One plausible approach to endow aerogels with specific properties while preserving their other attributes is to fine-tune the building blocks. However, the preparation of metallic aerogels with designated properties, for example catalytically beneficial morphologies and transition-metal doping, still remains a challenge. Here, we report on the first aerogel electrocatalyst composed entirely of alloyed PdNi hollow nanospheres (HNSs) with controllable chemical composition and shell thickness. The combination of transition-metal doping, hollow building blocks, and the three-dimensional network structure make the PdNi HNS aerogels promising electrocatalysts for ethanol oxidation. The mass activity of the Pd83 Ni17 HNS aerogel is 5.6-fold higher than that of the commercial Pd/C catalyst. This work expands the exploitation of the electrocatalysis properties of aerogels through the morphology and composition control of its building blocks.

Herein, we report on a room-temperature anion exchange reaction of highly emitting, all-inorganic CsPbBr 3 nanocrystals (NCs) taking place entirely in the solid state. A fast exchange from Br to I and Br to mixed Br/Cl without exertion of additional energy is observed within minutes to hours, taking place by immobilization of the perovskite NCs on pure potassium halide salts (KCl, KBr, and KI). Via adjustment of the halide ratios of the embedding salt matrix, the bright fluorescence of the CsPbX 3 (X = Cl, Br, or I) NCs can be tuned over a wide spectral range (400−700 nm) while maintaining the initial photoluminescence quantum yields of ∼80% and narrow full widths at half-maximum. We found that combinations of different initial CsPbX 3 NCs and KX matrices result in different final halogen contents of the NCs. This is explained with a host-lattice limiting exchange mechanism. The anion exchange rate can be accelerated by pressing the soft, NC-loaded salts under pressure of 2.2 GPa. Because of the "cold flow" behavior of the potassium salts during the pressing, a complete embedding of the NCs into transparent salt pellets is achieved. This strategy allows for an easy adjustment of the NC loading as well as the form and thickness of the resulting composite. An encapsulation of the NC−salt pellets with silicone yields robustness and stability of the embedded NCs under ambient conditions. The ease of handling and the superior stability make the resulting perovskite composite materials attractive for various photonic and optoelectronic applications as demonstrated in a proof-of-concept color-converting layer for a light−emitting diode.

A new class of multimetallic hierarchical aerogels composed entirely of interconnected Ni-Pd Pt nano-building-blocks with in situ engineered morphologies and compositions is demonstrated. The underlying mechanism of the galvanic shape-engineering is elucidated in terms of nanowelding of intermediate nanoparticles. The hierarchical aerogels integrate two levels of porous structures, leading to improved electrocatalysis performance.

We report an efficient approach to assemble a variety of electrostatically stabilized all-inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) by their linking with appropriate ions into multibranched gel networks. These all-inorganic non-ordered 3D assemblies benefit from strong interparticle coupling, which facilitates charge transport between the NCs with diverse morphologies, compositions, sizes, and functional capping ligands. Moreover, the resulting dry gels (aerogels) are highly porous monolithic structures, which preserve the quantum confinement of their building blocks. The inorganic semiconductor aerogel made of 4.5 nm CdSe colloidal NCs capped with I(-) ions and bridged with Cd(2+) ions had a large surface area of 146 m(2)  g(-1) .

In this study we report on mechanical properties of molded, single component Al 2 O 3 , Ga 2 O 3 , Fe 2 O 3 , and ZrO 2 as well as mixed aerogels, made from yttrium stabilized zirconia, yttrium aluminum garnet, and zinc aluminum spinel. Initially all aerogels were produced equally in molded bodies by a facile epoxy method and were annealed afterward at 300 °C. Then we performed uniaxial pressure tests on cylindrical aerogel monoliths to gain Young's modulus which depends on composition, density, and posttreatment. Already pure aerogels like ZrO 2 show wellpromising Young's modulus of 10.7 MPa, whereas most popular SiO 2 materials display a modulus between 2 and 3 MPa at comparable densities. Moreover we focused on Al 2 O 3 aerogels which exhibit high stability and interesting densification behavior depending on the annealing temperature. On the basis of this observation, we combined the toughness of the Al 2 O 3 scaffold with the extraordinary hardness of ZrO 2 , by adding up to 20 atom % Zr, to increase the specific Young's modulus. For the mixed material with a Zr content of 20 atom %, we reach a record value for compressible aerogels of 125 MPa mL g −1 .