Hydrangea-like Superstructured Micro/Nanoreactor of Topotactically Converted Ultrathin Bismuth Nanosheets for Highly Active CO₂ Electroreduction to Formate

Abstract

An electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO₂RR) is an appealing route to obtain the value-added feedstocks and alleviate the energy crisis. However, how to achieve high-performance electrocatalysts for CO₂ reduction to formate is challenging owing to the poor intrinsic activity, insufficient conductivity, and low surface density of active sites. Herein, we fabricated an extremely active and selective hydrangea-like superstructured micro/nanoreactor of ultrathin bismuth nanosheets through an <i>in situ</i> electrochemical topotactic transformation of hierarchical bismuth oxide formate (BiOCOOH). The resulted bismuth nanosheet superstructure is in the form of three-dimensional intercrossed networks of ultrathin nanosheets, forming an ordered open porous structure through self-assembly, which can be used as a micro/nanoreactor to enable a large electrochemically active surface area as well as high atomic utilization. Such a distinctive nanostructure endows the material with high electrocatalytic performances for CO₂ reduction to formate with near-unity Faradaic selectivity (>95%) in a wide potential window from -0.78 to -1.18 V. Furthermore, this micro/nanoreactor can give the high current densities over 300 mA cm^-2 at low applied potentials without compromising selectivity in a flow cell reactor. Density functional theory (DFT) and <i>in situ</i> attenuated total reflection-infrared spectroscopy (<i>in situ</i> ATR-IR) were further conducted to interpret the CO₂RR mechanisms.