Liquid-Phase Plasma Bubbles Exfoliation of Few-Layer Nanosheets for High-Performance CO2-to-Formate Conversion

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have demonstrated excellent application prospects in electrocatalysis due to their unique anisotropy, high densities of exposed atoms, and tunable surface chemistry. However, the top-down exfoliation of few-layer nanosheets by breaking van der Waals interactions often introduces external intercalating molecules or solvent molecules, which adversely affect their performance in electrocatalytic reactions. Herein, we report a liquid-phase plasma bubbles treatment method for the exfoliation and preparation of few-layer Bi 2 Se 3 nanosheets. As no external intercalating molecules are introduced, and the as-exfoliated few-layer nanosheets possess a higher density of unsaturated bonds, they exhibit outstanding performance in the electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO 2 RR). The Faradaic efficiency for CO 2 electroreduction to formate exceeds 90%, with catalytic stability maintained for up to 100 h. Furthermore, this exfoliation method demonstrates broad applicability, successfully producing few-layer MoS 2 , WS 2 , and WSe 2 nanosheets. This work provides a new strategy for the synthesis of high-performance few-layer nanosheets for electrocatalysis.