Two-way rushing travel: Cathodic-anodic coupling of Bi2O3-SnO@CuO nanowires, a bifunctional catalyst with excellent CO2RR and MOR performance for the efficient production of formate

Abstract

Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR) generates high value-added products and simultaneously reduces excess atmospheric CO2 concentrations, is regarded as a potential approach to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the kinetic process of the anode oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is slow, resulting in a poor electrochemical efficiency of CO2RR. It is a breakthrough to replace OER with methanol oxidation reaction (MOR), which has more advantageous reaction kinetics. Herein, this work proposed a bifunctional catalyst Bi2O3-SnO modified CuO nanowires (Bi2O3-SnO@CuO NWs) with excellent CO2RR and MOR performance. For CO2RR, Bi2O3-SnO@CuO NWs achieved more than 90% formate selectivity at wide potential windows from −0.88 to −1.08 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE)), peaking at 96.6%. Meanwhile, anodic Bi2O3-SnO@CuO NWs achieved 100 mA cm−2 at a low potential of 1.53 V (vs. RHE), possessing nearly 100% formate selectivity ranging from 1.6 to 1.8 V (vs. RHE). Impressively, by coupling cathodic CO2RR and anodic MOR, the integrated electrolytic cell realized co-production of formate (cathode: 94.7% and anode: 97.5%), minimizing the energy input by approximately 69%, compared with CO2RR. This work provided a meaningful perspective for the design of bifunctional catalysts and coupling reaction systems in CO2RR.