Issue 22, 2024

Easily constructed porous silver films for efficient catalytic CO2 reduction and Zn–CO2 batteries

Abstract

For the electroreduction of carbon dioxide into high value-added chemicals, highly active and selective catalysts are crucial, and metallic silver is one of the most intriguing candidate materials available at a reasonable cost. Herein, through a novel two-step operation of Ag paste/SBA-15 coating and HF etching, porous silver films on a commercial carbon paper with a waterproofer (p-Ag/CP) could be easily fabricated on a large scale as highly efficient carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR) electrocatalysts with a CO Faraday efficiency (FECO) as high as 96.7% at −1.0 V vs. the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), and it still reaches up to 90% FECO over applied potentials ranging from −0.8 to −1.1 V vs. the RHE. Meanwhile, the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) utilizing the p-Ag/CP catalyst has achieved a current density, FECO, and stability of ∼60 mA cm−2, >91%, and 11 h, respectively. Furthermore, the assembled aqueous Zn–CO2 battery using p-Ag/CP cathode yielded a peak power density of 0.34 mW cm−2, 75 charge–discharge cycles for 25 h, and 64% FECO at 2.5 mA cm−2. Compared with flat Ag/CP, the significant enhancement in the CO2RR activity of p-Ag/CP was mainly attributed to the distinctive porous structure and an improved three-phase boundary, which is capable of inducing the stabilization of *COOH intermediates, increased active specific surface areas, fast electron transfer kinetic and mass transportation. Further, theoretical calculations revealed that p-Ag/CP possessed an optimized energy barrier for *COOH intermediates.

Graphical abstract: Easily constructed porous silver films for efficient catalytic CO2 reduction and Zn–CO2 batteries

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 yan 2024
Accepted
22 apr 2024
First published
23 apr 2024

Nanoscale, 2024,16, 10628-10636

Easily constructed porous silver films for efficient catalytic CO2 reduction and Zn–CO2 batteries

J. Ding, T. Wei, T. Hou, W. Liu, Q. Liu, H. Zhang, J. Luo and X. Liu, Nanoscale, 2024, 16, 10628 DOI: 10.1039/D4NR00340C

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