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• A simple liquid Ga assisted-alloying/dealloying strategy to fabricate nanoporous Ag. • The thickness of alloy layer/nanoporous Ag varies with the mass loading of Ga. • The bimodal wire-like and unimodal bulk-like nanoporous Ag is obtained. • The substrate-supported nanoporous Ag exhibits excellent mechanical properties. The substrate-supported nanoporous Ag with controllable thickness and different morphologies (bulk-like and wire-like) is fabricated via the liquid Ga-assisted alloying/dealloying strategy. [Display omitted] Nanoporous metals show great potentials in various applications including catalysis, sensing, actuation and supercapacitors. The liquid Ga-assisted alloying/dealloying strategy is a feasible and scalable way to fabricate substrate-supported nanoporous metals. However, the influence of intrinsic alloying mode and mechanism on the formation and modulation of nanoporous structure has not been thoroughly explored before. In this work, after painting liquid Ga on Ag foil, both the bulk-like Ag 3 Ga (in the Ag-rich zone) and wire-like Ag 3 Ga (in the liquid Ga-rich zone) form owing to the interdiffusion of Ag and Ga atoms. Correspondingly, the bimodal wire-like and unimodal bulk-like nanoporous Ag is obtained because of the structure inheritance during dealloying. In addition, the thickness of alloy layer (nanoporous layer) versus mass loading of liquid Ga follows a good linear relationship. The in-situ X-ray diffraction of dealloying from Ag 3 Ga to nanoporous Ag illustrates no other intermetallic phase appears and the dealloying process can be described by the dissolution-surface diffusion model. More importantly, the substrate-supported nanoporous Ag exhibits excellent mechanical properties which are of great importance to the future applications of nanoporous metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A room-temperature Ag 3 Ga-mediated liquid EGaSn anode with improved wettability for advanced Mg ion batteries. [Display omitted] • The room-temperature Ag 3 Ga-mediated liquid EGaSn anode was simply prepared for MIBs. • Ag 3 Ga can improve the wettability of EGaSn on the substrate and provide capacity. • ssm-Ag 3 Ga-EGaSn shows superior electrochemical performance in half and full cells. • Reaction mechanism of the Ag 3 Ga-mediated liquid EGaSn anode was unveiled. Liquid metals with a self-healing property can address the passivation issue of Mg metal and the huge volume variation problem of solid alloy-type anodes in rechargeable magnesium ion batteries (MIBs). Liquid Ga-based anodes show great potentials in MIBs, however, being operated at room temperature is a great challenge. Herein, a novel strategy is proposed to enhance the room-temperature Mg storage performance of liquid eutectic GaSn (EGaSn) alloy through constructing a bifunctional intermetallic compound (Ag 3 Ga) layer on the current collector. This Ag 3 Ga layer could greatly improve the wettability of EGaSn on the substrate in the electrolyte environment. Moreover, operando X-ray diffraction confirms that Ag 3 Ga could participate the reversible alloying/dealloying reactions during the discharge/charge processes and thus provide an extra capacity. Eventually, the Ag 3 Ga-mediated EGaSn anode exhibits outstanding electrochemical performance towards Mg storage in both half and full cells at room temperature (∼24 and 21 °C), as benchmarked with state-of-the-art anodes in MIBs. Specially, the MIBs could be stably cycled up to 600 cycles in the half cell configuration, and 100 cycles in the full cell assembly. This work provides useful information on the development of advanced anodes for MIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]