Bismuth oxide nanostructure supported on Cu foam as efficient electrocatalyst toward carbon dioxide electroreduction

Bismuth-based catalysts have emerged as promising materials for efficient electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide due to their unique electronic and catalytic properties. In this work, we present a new type of hybrid nanomaterials compositing of partially reduced oxide Bi particle into metallic Bi anchored on 3D network of Cu foam as a high-performance catalyst for electrochemical CO 2 conversion to formate. CO 2 electroreduction in neutral condition with high durability has remained challenging. One of the main stability problems of Bi catalysts is their susceptibility to surface oxidation, which can cause the deactivation of the catalyst during electrochemical reactions. Under proper bismuth growth control, herein, our strategy on preparing Bi/Cu foam catalyst demonstrated high CO 2 electrochemical reduction performance with formate faradaic efficiency of more than 90% with a great stability of 50-h operation at an applied current density of 50 mA cm –2 in a neutral environment. The catalyst fine nanostructures resulted in high available active sites and high conductivity of substrate have resulted in its great durability and selectivity.