A general approach to high-entropy metallic nanowire electrocatalysts

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) hold great promise for efficient catalyst discovery in a virtually unlimited compositional space. The control-lable incorporation of multiple metal elements into low-dimensional nanomaterials with tailored structure merits untold scientific and applicable potential; however, it remains a great challenge using previous high-temperature synthetic techniques. Hence, we report a general reduction-diffusion method for constructing a library of atomic-thick Pt-based HEA nanowires (NWs) with up to ten compo-nents. We have identified that the initial formation of Pt NWs and the nucleation rate of other transition metals are the key points in forming a uniform HEA single-phase solid solution. Our method can be used to synthesize 26 kinds of multimetallic NWs, including 17 HEAs. The high-entropy design can introduce severe lattice distortion in NWs, thereby altering the strain distribution and elec-tronic structure, which enables the HEA NWs with specific compo-nents to exhibit outstanding catalytic performance in hydrogen oxidation reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction.