Novel Bi-Doped Amorphous SnOx Nanoshells for Efficient Electrochemical CO2 Reduction into Formate at Low Overpotentials

Engineering novel Sn-based bimetallic materials could provide intriguing catalytic properties to boost the electrochemical CO(2)reduction. Herein, the first synthesis of homogeneous Sn(1-x)Bi(x)alloy nanoparticles (xup to 0.20) with native Bi-doped amorphous SnO(x)shells for efficient CO(2)reduction is reported. The Bi-SnO(x)nanoshells boost the production of formate with high Faradaic efficiencies (>90%) over a wide potential window (-0.67 to -0.92 V vs RHE) with low overpotentials, outperforming current tin oxide catalysts. The state-of-the-art Bi-SnO(x)nanoshells derived from Sn(0.80)Bi(0.20)alloy nanoparticles exhibit a great partial current density of 74.6 mA cm(-2)and high Faradaic efficiency of 95.8%. The detailed electrocatalytic analyses and corresponding density functional theory calculations simultaneously reveal that the incorporation of Bi atoms into Sn species facilitates formate production by suppressing the formation of H(2)and CO.