Deciphering the Multi-Faces of Ionic Liquids: Manipulating Size-Tailored Gold Aerogels as Recoverable Catalysts for Water Remediation

As rising stars of the aerogel family, metal aerogels (MAs) manifest broad prospects for combining features of nanostructured metals and aerogels. However, restricted by insufficient mechanistic understanding and limited strategies, the structure-tailored fabrication of MAs remains challenging. Here, unveiling and utilizing the triple roles (initiator, ligand, and solvent) played by imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs), a robust and universal method is developed, yielding diverse ligament-size-tailored MAs at ambient temperature assisted by ILs (down to 0.5 µm, ≈7.7 × 10⁻⁶ vol.%). Moreover, the ILs can be recovered by salt-induced phase separation. Driven by unconventional self-healing properties, special optical features, and abundant catalytically active sites, the tailor-made gold aerogels are confirmed as a new generation of self-recoverable and light-enhanced catalysts for water remediation.