| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, 350002 China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 China;2. State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, 350002 China;3. Department of Chemical Engineering, Zhicheng College, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350002 China;4. AIST-Kyoto University Chemical Energy Materials Open Innovation Laboratory (ChEM-OIL), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501 Japan |
| 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. |
