Metal–Organic Layers Leading to Atomically Thin Bismuthene for Efficient Carbon Dioxide Electroreduction to Liquid Fuel

Abstract

Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ to valuable fuels is appealing for CO₂ fixation and energy storage. However, the development of electrocatalysts with high activity and selectivity in a wide potential window is challenging. Herein, atomically thin bismuthene (Bi-ene) is pioneeringly obtained by an in situ electrochemical transformation from ultrathin bismuth-based metal-organic layers. The few-layer Bi-ene, which possesses a great mass of exposed active sites with high intrinsic activity, has a high selectivity (ca. 100 %), large partial current density, and quite good stability in a potential window exceeding 0.35 V toward formate production. It even deliver current densities that exceed 300.0 mA cm^-2 without compromising selectivity in a flow-cell reactor. Using in situ ATR-IR spectra and DFT analysis, a reaction mechanism involving HCO₃ ^- for formate generation was unveiled, which brings new fundamental understanding of CO₂ reduction.