Thermal derived bismuth nanoparticles on nitrogen-doped carbon aerogel enable selective electrochemical production of formate from CO2

Producing formate via electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR) is an attractive approach to carbon neutrality but suffers from low selectivity and energy conversion efficiency. Herein, we develop an efficient CO2RR electrocatalyst composed of Bi nanoparticles supported on N-doped carbon aerogel ([email protected]). Based on experimental and computational results, the carbon support serves as dual roles, one is to stabilize Bi nanoparticles by nitrogen dopants, the other function is to provide high porosity with abundant active sites to enhance CO2 adsorbability. Because of the synergistic effect between Bi nanoparticles and N-doped carbon framework, the as-obtained [email protected] delivers remarkable performance with moderate overpotential, and high selectivity towards formate with Faradaic efficiency surpassing 95% in a wide potential range.