hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
Efficient, stable catalysts with high selectivity for a single product are essential if electroreduction of CO2 is to
become a viable route to the synthesis of industrial feedstocks and fuels. A plasma oxidation pre-treatment of silver foil
enhances the number of low-coordinated catalytically active sites, which dramatically lowers the overpotential and increases
the activity of CO2 electroreduction to CO. At −0.6 V versus
RHE more than 90% Faradaic efficiency towards CO was achieved on a pre-oxidized silver foil. While transmission
electron microscopy (TEM) and operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy showed that oxygen species can survive in the
bulk of the catalyst during the reaction, quasi in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the surface is metallic
under reaction conditions. DFT calculations reveal that the defect-rich surface of the plasma-oxidized silver foils in the presence of local electric fields drastically decrease the overpotential of CO2 electroreduction.
