The rapid development of electrochemical CO2 reduction offers a promising route to convert intermittent renewable energy into products of high value-added fuels or chemical feedstocks. However, low faradaic efficiency, low current density, and a narrow potential range still limit the large-scale application of CO2RR electrocatalysts. Herein, monolith 3D bi-continuous nanoporous bismuth (np-Bi) electrodes are fabricated via a simple one-step electrochemical dealloying strategy from Pb-Bi binary alloy. The unique bi-continuous porous structure ensures highly effective charge transfer; meanwhile, the controllable millimeter-sized geometric porous structure enables easy catalyst adjustment to expose highly suitable surface curvatures with abundant reactive sites. This results in a high selectivity of 92.6% and superior potential window (400 mV, selectivity > 88%) for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to formate. Our scalable strategy provides a feasible pathway for mass-producing high-performance and versatile CO2 electrocatalysts.
Keywords: 3D architectures; CO2 reduction; dealloying; formate; nanoporous.