CV-etched Nanostructured Ag Foils for Efficient Electrochemical CO2 Reduction

Electrochemical reduction of CO2 has attracted wide attention because it can realize an artificial carbon cycle. The key step to achieving efficient electrochemical conversion of CO2 is the preparation of catalysts with multiple active sites, prepared without additional strong alkaline solutions. In this work, the surfaces of Ag foils were nanosized by simple cyclic voltammetry(CV) pretreatment, which can supply an abundant specific surface area for the CO2 reduction reaction(CO2RR). The results indicated that the CO2RR performance of Ag catalysts was boosted, and the competitive reaction of H-2 evolution was suppressed. For this catalyst, at -0.92 V vs. RHE(reversible hydrogen electrode), the current density of CO achieved 12.31 mA/cm(2), a significant increase compared to that of the untreated Ag foils(0.81 mA/cm(2)). The outstanding electrochemical properties are ascribed to the rich nanostructures on Ag foils after the CV pretreatment. The nanostructure has a very high specific surface area, so it can supply more reactive active sites in the process of CO2RR.