A Liquid Metal Reaction System for Advanced Material Manufacturing

Y 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.

Automated summary

Liquid metal, with unique properties like self-limited growth and good rheological properties, shows great potential in the controllable fabrication of 2D materials and functional composite materials. The research on advanced materials manufacturing on liquid metals is still in its infancy, but offers promising prospects for various applications in energy field and beyond.