Ar-plasma activated Au film with under-coordinated facet for enhanced and sustainable CO2 reduction to CO

Au exhibits special properties in electrocatalytically converting CO2 into CO, wherein it is challenging to improve the activity and selectivity of CO production due to concurrent H-2 evolution reaction. Since nanostructured Au films with under-coordinated facets can facilitate catalytic performance in selective CO2 reduction, herein, we develop a facile method to bombard the Au films using Ar plasma to induce the surface nanostructure, which exhibit greatly enhanced activity and selectivity of reducing CO2 to CO, with a Si solar cell as the power source in order to achieve green conversion of CO2. A high CO Faradaic efficiency of 81.4 % is achieved, with a cathodic CO energy efficiency of 58.0 % at -0.65 V vs RHE. It is found that the Ar-plasma treatment can create new active sites of under-coordinated facet with open structure, Au(311), lower surface work function, and increase the electrochemical surface area of Au film. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the Gibbs free energy required for COOH* formation is lower on the open Au(311) facet than that on the closely-packed Au(111), accounting for greater ability of the CO2 activation on Au(311) facet. All these are favorable for enhanced CO2 conversion to CO.

Automated summary

The use of Ar plasma treatment on gold films can effectively enhance the activity and selectivity of CO2 conversion to CO by altering the surface structure, increasing the open under-coordinated facet, and reducing the surface work function, thus promoting CO2 activation and increasing CO yield.