Scalable Production of 2D Non-Layered Metal Oxides through Metal-Organic Gel Rapid Redox Transformation

Two-dimensional (2D) nonlayered metal compounds with porous structure show broad application prospects in electrochemistry-related fields due to their abundant active sites, open ions/electrons diffusion channels, and faradaic reactions. However, scalable and universal synthesis of 2D porous compounds still remains challenging. Here, inspired by blowing gum, a metal-organic gel (MOG) rapid redox transformation (MRRT) strategy is proposed for the mass production of a wide variety of 2D porous metal oxides. Adequate crosslinking degree of MOG precursor and its rapid redox with NO₃ ^- are critical for generating gas pressure from interior to exterior, thus blowing the MOG into 2D carbon nanosheets, which further act as self-sacrifice template for formation of oxides with porous and ultrathin structure. The versatility of this strategy is demonstrated by the fabrication of 39 metal oxides, including 10 transition metal oxides, one II-main group oxide, two III-main group oxides, 22 perovskite oxides, four high-entropy oxides. As an illustrative verification, the 2D transition metal oxides exhibit excellent capacitive deionization (CDI) performance. Moreover, the assembled CDI cell could act as desalting battery to supply electrical energy during electrode regeneration. This MRRT strategy offers opportunities for achieving universal synthesis of 2D porous oxides with nonlayered structures and studying their electrochemistry-related applications.