Surface passivation for highly active, selective, stable, and scalable CO ₂ electroreduction

Abstract

Electrochemical conversion of CO ₂ to formic acid using Bismuth catalysts is one the most promising pathways for industrialization. However, it is still difficult to achieve high formic acid production at wide voltage intervals and industrial current densities because the Bi catalysts are often poisoned by oxygenated species. Herein, we report a Bi ₃S ₂ nanowire-ascorbic acid hybrid catalyst that simultaneously improves formic acid selectivity, activity, and stability at high applied voltages. Specifically, a more than 95% faraday efficiency was achieved for the formate formation over a wide potential range above 1.0 V and at ampere-level current densities. The observed excellent catalytic performance was attributable to a unique reconstruction mechanism to form more defective sites while the ascorbic acid layer further stabilized the defective sites by trapping the poisoning hydroxyl groups. When used in an all-solid-state reactor system, the newly developed catalyst achieved efficient production of pure formic acid over 120 hours at 50 mA cm ^–2 (200 mA cell current).

Abstract

Achieving high pure formic acid production from CO ₂ electroconversion is of high interest yet challenging. Here the authors report vitamin C functionalized Bi ₃S ₂ nanowire catalyst to achieve selective, active, and stable formic acid production.