Plasmonic Ag-decorated Cu2O nanowires for boosting photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction to multi-carbon products.

Abstract

The generation of multi-carbon products on the Cu2O photocathode remains a great challenge. Herein, effective charge separation and surface catalytic reaction are achieved for photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction through plasmon metal (Ag) decoration on Cu2O nanowires. The Cu2O/Ag composite photocathode achieves a 47.7% faradaic efficiency for CH3COOH and the generation rate is 212.7 μmol cm-2 h-1 under illumination, which is about five times that in dark (44.4 μmol cm-2 h-1) at -0.7 V vs. RHE.