One of the key issues that is holding back widespread applications of noble metal aerogels is a lack of understanding of the underlying structure-performance correlations. Presumably, this is caused by an insufficient understanding of the sol-gel process that limits manipulating versatile parameters, such as ligament sizes, compositions, and spatial element distributions. Recently published findings not only take a big step towards the detailed understanding of reductant chemistry and gelation mechanisms, manipulating the microstructures, and enriching the compositions of NMAs, but also open a new dimension for devising high-performance electrocatalysts by taking advantage of the ligand effects.
