Nanostructured Ag/In/Cu foam catalyst for electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO

Abstract A nanostructured Ag/In/Cu foam is prepared by a facile electrochemical method and evaluated as a catalyst for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO. The electrodeposited In is partially displaced by Ag to investigate the catalytic CO-producing activity of Ag/In catalyst with different composition of Ag and In, which is easily controlled by adjusting the displacement time of Ag. In order to provide a large electrochemical surface area, we then employ bubble-templated Cu foam as a roughened metal support for the Ag/In catalyst. The Ag/In/Cu foam catalyst exhibits notable performance to other previous catalysts, in terms of CO Faradaic efficiency and partial current density, especially in low overpotential region. The result is ascribed to the suppressed hydrogen evolution by In and morphological advantage by Cu foam.