Decorating graphdiyne on ultrathin bismuth subcarbonate nanosheets to promote CO2 electroreduction to formate

Shang-Feng Tang; Xiu-Li Lu; Chao Zhang; Zhen-Wei Wei; Rui Si; Tong-Bu Lu

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2021.03.020

Decorating graphdiyne on ultrathin bismuth subcarbonate nanosheets to promote CO₂ electroreduction to formate

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2021 Aug 15;66(15):1533-1541. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2021.03.020. Epub 2021 Mar 23.

Authors

Shang-Feng Tang¹, Xiu-Li Lu², Chao Zhang¹, Zhen-Wei Wei¹, Rui Si³, Tong-Bu Lu⁴

Affiliations

¹ MOE International Joint Laboratory of Materials Microstructure, Institute for New Energy Materials and Low Carbon Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China.
² MOE International Joint Laboratory of Materials Microstructure, Institute for New Energy Materials and Low Carbon Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China. Electronic address: luxiuli@email.tjut.edu.cn.
³ Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201204, China. Electronic address: sirui@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
⁴ MOE International Joint Laboratory of Materials Microstructure, Institute for New Energy Materials and Low Carbon Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China. Electronic address: lutongbu@tjut.edu.cn.

PMID: 36654282
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2021.03.020

Abstract

Electrocatalytic reduction of CO₂ is one of the most attractive approaches for converting CO₂ into valuable chemical feedstocks and fuels. This work reports a catalyst comprising graphdiyne-decorated bismuth subcarbonate (denoted as BOC@GDY) for efficient electroreduction of CO₂ to formate. The BOC@GDY shows a stable current density of 200 mA cm^-2 at -1.1 V in a flow cell configuration, with a faradaic efficiency of 93.5% for formate. Experimental results show that the synergistic effect in BOC@GDY is beneficial for the CO₂ adsorption affinity, the reaction kinetics and the selectivity for formate. In addition, in-situ X-ray absorption and Raman spectroscopy indicate that the electron-rich GDY could facilitate the reduction from Bi(III) to Bi(0), thus leading to more active sites. We also demonstrate that the promoting effect of GDY in CO₂ electroreduction can be further extended to other metal catalysts. To the best of our knowledge, such general promoting functions of GDY for CO₂ electroreduction have not been documented thus far.

Keywords: Bismuth subcarbonate; CO(2) reduction; Formate; Graphdiyne; Two-dimensional electrocatalysts.

MeSH terms

Bismuth*
Carbon Dioxide*
Formates

Substances

bismuth subcarbonate
graphdiyne
Carbon Dioxide
Bismuth
formic acid
Formates