Plasmonic Ag-decorated Cu2O nanowires for boosting photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction to multi-carbon products

The generation of multi-carbon products on the Cu2O photocathode remains a great challenge. Herein, effective charge separation and surface catalytic reaction are achieved for photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction through plasmon metal (Ag) decoration on Cu2O nanowires. The Cu2O/Ag composite photocathode achieves a 47.7% faradaic efficiency for CH3COOH and the generation rate is 212.7 mu mol cm(-2) h(-1) under illumination, which is about five times that in dark (44.4 mu mol cm(-2) h(-1)) at -0.7 V vs. RHE.

Automated summary

This study achieves effective charge separation and surface catalytic reaction for photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction by decorating silver on Cu2O nanowires, resulting in a high faradaic efficiency for CH3COOH production.