Oxygen vacancies enriched Bi based catalysts for enhancing electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to formate

Electrochemical reduction of CO 2 is still far away from the practical application because of the stability of CO 2 and the diversity of reduction products. It is thus of great importance to further explore catalysts with high efficiency for CO 2 reduction to targeting products. Herein, for the first time, a hybrid of BiO x decorated with carbon thin layer is developed as high active electrocatalyst for CO 2 conversion, which is synthesized by pyrolysis using Bi MOF as precursor and sacrificial template. It is found that the as-prepared BiO x catalyst is enriched with oxygen vacancies stabilized by the decorated carbon thin layer. The oxygen vacancies enriched BiO x catalyst exhibits superior performance for CO 2 reduction to formate, achieving a maximum Faradaic efficiency of 89.3% and a maximum current density of 37.8 mA cm −2 . The thin carbon layer and oxygen vacancies improve the charge transfer of the catalyst and hence in favor of the high formate current density. The defects of oxygen vacancies play a vital role in CO 2 adsorption and activation and thereby further enhancing the electrocatalytic ability for formate production.