Enhancing Electrocatalytic Conversion of Bicarbonate to Formate by Via Bismuth Alloys

The bicarbonate reduction reaction has been emerging as a promising approach for converting CO2-riched medium to profitable products. However, the reduction of bicarbonate to formate still requires further development to achieve a moderate faradic efficiency. Herein, we introduced a low hydrogen-affinity metal (indium) into bismuth-based materials for BRR. It shows a favorable FEformate of 84.81%, a considerable formate partial current density of 241 mA∙cm-2, and a superior formate generation rate of 56 mmol∙L-1∙cm-2∙h-1. Comprehensive ex-situ XRD characterization suggests that the incorporation of indium will inhibit the phase transformation from metallic bismuth to a bismuth subcarbonate species, which leads to the enhanced performance for bicarbonate reduction to facilitate improved cathodic formate production from the In-Bi alloy as compared to pure Bi.