This paper reviews the advances in the chemical synthesis and application of metal-metalloid amorphous alloy nanoparticles consisting of transition metal (M) and metalloid elements (B, P). After a brief introduction on the history of amorphous alloy catalysts, the paper focuses on the properties and characterization of amorphous alloy catalysts, and recent developments in the solution-phase synthesis of amorphous alloy nanoparticles. This paper further outlines the applications of amorphous alloys, with special emphasis on the problems and strategies for the application of amorphous alloy nanoparticles in catalytic reactions.
History of amorphous alloy catalystAmorphous alloys have been extensively investigated internationally over the last 50 years largely spurred by their unique electronic, magnetic and surface properties and their increasing utility in a broad range of applications [1,2]. The amorphous alloy nanoparticles have gained increasing attention as novel catalytic materials since 1980, with the unique isotropic structure and high concentration of coordinatively unsaturated sites leading to catalytic activity and selectivity superior to their crystalline counterparts [3]. Especially, amorphous alloys chemically reduced by borohydride (BH 4 − ) and hypophosphite (H 2 PO 2 − ) have nanosized morphology and consequently higher surface area and activity than those prepared by the quenching method [4][5][6][7][8]. It has been regarded that the amorphous alloy catalyst can be a potential alternative to Raney nickel or noble metal catalyst in catalytic hydrogenation. Raney nickel has shown many serious disadvantages, such as short lifetimes due to poor sulfur resistance and environmental pollution caused by alkaline leaching during preparation. In contrast, the amorphous alloy nanoparticulate catalysts are inexpensive, environmentally benign, and effective catalytic materials.For the chemical synthesis of metal-metalloid amorphous alloy catalysts, Brown et al. and Paul et al. found that the NiB particles reduced by sodium borohydride in water or ethanol solution showed excellent catalytic activity and selectivity in many hydrogenation reactions [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. After that, and Chen et al. [21][22][23][24] studied the mechanism of borohydride reduction and the relation between properties and preparation conditions. On the other hand, Deng and coworkers have been interested in studying the properties of amorphous alloy particles and the application of metal boron (MB) and metal phosphorus (MP) amorphous alloys for catalytic hydrogenation [25-37]. Dragieva et al. focused on developing amorphous alloys as electrode or catalytic oxidation materials [38-43], while Chen and coworkers prepared MPB alloy nanoparticle catalysts for various selective hydrogenation reactions [44-50]. Amorphous alloy nanoparticulate catalysts have been widely studied by different research groups in China [51-60]. Among them, our group has attempted to develop NiB and NiP industrial amorphous alloy catalysts in various catalyt...