Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol on Hierarchical Pd/SnO Nanosheets with Abundant Pd-O-Sn Interfaces.

Electrochemical conversion of CO into fuels using electricity generated from renewable sources helps to create an artificial carbon cycle. However, the low efficiency and poor stability hinder the practical use of most conventional electrocatalysts. In this work, a 2D hierarchical Pd/SnO structure, ultrathin Pd nanosheets partially capped by SnO nanoparticles, is designed to enable multi-electron transfer for selective electroreduction of CO into CH OH. Such a structure design not only enhances the adsorption of CO on SnO , but also weakens the binding strength of CO on Pd due to the as-built Pd-O-Sn interfaces, which is demonstrated to be critical to improve the electrocatalytic selectivity and stability of Pd catalysts. This work provides a new strategy to improve electrochemical performance of metal-based catalysts by creating metal oxide interfaces for selective electroreduction of CO .