Room-temperature synthesis of high-entropy metal sulfide nanobelts for electrocatalytic nitrate reduction

High-entropy nanomaterials have attracted tremendous research attention owing to their unique physical and chemical properties. Conventional methods for the synthesis of high-entropy nanomaterials often necessitate high temperatures and struggle with achieving well-defined morphologies. Here, we report room-temperature synthesis of high-entropy metal sulfide nanobelts through sequential cation exchange reactions between the pre-synthesized cobalt sulfide nanobelts and various metal ions in aqueous solution. The cation exchange reaction follows the hard and soft acid-base theory, which guides us to design and produce a variety of binary to high-entropy octonary metal sulfide nanobelts with uniform distribution of elements. The high-entropy quinary (CoCuSnFeIn)S x nanobelts demonstrate significantly enhanced electrocatalytic performance for the nitrate reduction reaction in comparison to low- and medium-entropy metal sulfide nanobelts, due to the increased configurational entropy and synergistic benefits of the incorporated metal elements. Our work provides a facile yet powerful synthesis platform for designing and synthesizing a diverse array of multi-metal/high-entropy sulfide nanomaterials with controlled compositions for electrocatalytic applications. A room-temperature sequential cation exchange strategy is developed to synthesize high-entropy metal sulfide nanobelts. These nanobelts exhibit exceptional electrocatalytic activity and selectivity for the nitrate reduction reaction to ammonia. Download: Download high-res image (234KB) Download: Download full-size image