Noble metal nanomaterials have been widely used as catalysts. Common techniques for the synthesis of noble metal often result in crystalline nanostructures. The synthesis of amorphous noble metal nanostructures remains a substantial challenge. We present a general route for preparing dozens of different amorphous noble metal nanosheets with thickness less than 10 nm by directly annealing the mixture of metal acetylacetonate and alkali salts. Tuning atom arrangement of the noble metals enables to optimize their catalytic properties. Amorphous Ir nanosheets exhibit a superior performance for oxygen evolution reaction under acidic media, achieving 2.5-fold, 17.6-fold improvement in mass activity (at 1.53 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode) over crystalline Ir nanosheets and commercial IrO2 catalyst, respectively. In situ X-ray absorption fine structure spectra indicate the valance state of Ir increased to less than + 4 during the oxygen evolution reaction process and recover to its initial state after the reaction.

Lithium-sulfur batteries show great potential to achieve high-energy-density storage, but their long-term stability is still limited due to the shuttle effect caused by the dissolution of polysulfides into electrolyte. Herein, we report a strategy of significantly improving the polysulfides adsorption capability of cobaltous oxide by amorphization-induced surface electronic states modulation. The amorphous cobaltous oxide nanosheets as the cathode additives for lithium-sulfur batteries demonstrates the rate capability and cycling stability with an initial capacity of 1248.2 mAh g-1 at 1 C and a substantial capacity retention of 1037.3 mAh g-1 after 500 cycles. X-ray absorption spectroscopy analysis reveal that the coordination structures and symmetry of ligand field around Co atoms of cobaltous oxide nanosheets are notably changed after amorphization. Moreover, DFT studies further indicate that amorphization-induced re-distribution of d orbital makes more electrons occupy high energy level, thereby resulting in a high binding energy with polysulfides for favorable adsorption.

Heterogeneous noble‐metal‐based catalysis plays an essential role in the production of fine chemicals. Rh‐based catalysts are one of the most active candidates for indole synthesis. However, it is still highly desired to develop heterogeneous Rh‐based catalysts with high activity and selectivity. In this work, a general, facile wet‐chemical method is reported to synthesize ultrathin amorphous/crystalline heterophase Rh and Rh‐based bimetallic alloy nanosheets (NSs), including RhCu, RhZn, and RhRu. Impressively, the amorphous/crystalline heterophase Rh NSs exhibit enhanced catalytic activity toward the direct synthesis of indole compared to the crystalline counterpart. Importantly, the obtained amorphous/crystalline heterophase RhCu alloy NSs can further enhance the selectivity to indole of >99.9% and the conversion is 100%. This work demonstrates the importance of phase engineering and metal alloying in the rational design and synthesis of tandem heterogeneous catalysts toward fine chemical synthesis.