A Liquid Metal Reaction System for Advanced Material Manufacturing

Abstract

Conspectus Liquid metal exhibits the unique advantages of both the liquid and metal, including excellent deformability, high thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity. The exploration of liquid metal is a new opportunity and revolution for the application of metal materials, including the flexible devices, catalysis, microfluidic, and drug delivery. In addition to the above applications, the characteristics of excellent inclusive ability with the majority of the elements and abundant vacancies in the bulk make it a new type of reaction medium different from traditional aqueous and organic solutions, exhibiting great potential in the precise construction of materials. To date, the research of using liquid metal as a reaction system to synthesize materials is still in its infancy. When acting as a reaction system, the vacancies inside and the smooth layering surfaces without grain boundaries allow liquid metals to encapsulate heterogeneous atoms, confine the precursors in atomically thick layers and realize the self-limiting growth of 2D material. Besides, the good rheological property makes it possible to construct 2D arrays on its surface. Except for the properties mentioned above, as a kind of metal, its excellent electrical conductivity and ductility provide a new idea for the preparation of composite materials in the energy field. Indeed, liquid metals provide attractive prospects in manufacturing advanced materials including 2D materials and functional composite materials. Thus, this Account aims to focus on the controllable fabrication of 2D materials and functional composite materials by liquid metals. Based on the characteristics of the surface layering and solidification and of excellent fluidity, the self-limited growth and ordered arrangement of 2D materials on liquid metal surfaces can be achieved, which enriches the material structures and leads to new properties. By constructing an in situ synthesis and observation system, the growth and assembly behavior of 2D materials on the liquid metal can be observed directly. Combining the electrical property, deformability, ductility, and high inclusive ability with other materials, the liquid metal reaction system can also realize the preparation of new functional composite materials toward various applications, such as the energy field. Except for the 2D materials and functional composite materials mentioned here, liquid metals also provide more possibilities for fabricating other promising materials, like wafer-scale semiconductors, magic-angle graphene, flexible functional materials, biomedical materials, and so on. The research concerning the manufacturing of advanced materials on liquid metals is still in its infancy. We believe that the development of related technologies offering in-depth investigation and theoretical understanding on liquid metals will lay a solid foundation for the basic research and practical application of more advanced materials.

Precise Regulation of Ga-Based Liquid Metal Oxidation

“…The strong electronegativity and electrochemical potential window of Ga-based LMs offer remarkable possibilities for various chemical applications, such as energy harvesting and storage, and for the reaction system. 7,14,15 Biological Properties. In contrast with other well-known low melting point metals, such as Hg, Fr, Cs, and Rb, only Ga is suitable for safe biological applications due to characteristics of virtually nonexistent vapor pressure (Table 1), nontoxicity, and biodegradability.…”

Polydopamine Shell as a Ga3+ Reservoir for Triggering Gallium–Indium Phase Separation in Eutectic Gallium–Indium Nanoalloys

“…Nanometallurgy offers great opportunities for developing intelligent systems. − In the field of nanometallurgy, gallium (Ga)-based alloys have recently attracted significant attention as they extend access to the liquid state of metals at room or near room temperature. − For liquid metal alloys of Ga, a certain mixed ratio of other metals with Ga leads to “eutectic” systems that have the lowest melting temperature due to the increased entropy . A famous eutectic alloy of Ga is its mixture with indium (In), which is called EGaIn, consisting of 75 wt % Ga and 25 wt % In that offers a low melting temperature of ∼15.7 °C .…”

Growth, Raman Scattering Investigation and Photodetector Properties of 2D SnP

“…Ascribed to its atomically smooth surface, [21,22] liquid metals are considered as the effective growth substrates in the CVD processing. [23,24] The strategy and growth processes are demonstrated in Figure 1c. A tube furnace with a single temperature zone was used.…”