One Pot-Synthesized Ag/Ag-Doped CeO Nanocomposite with Rich and Stable 3D Interfaces and Ce for Efficient Carbon Dioxide Electroreduction.

Electrochemical CO reduction (ECR) technology is promising to produce value-added chemicals and alleviate the climate deterioration. Interface engineering is demonstrated to improve the ECR performance for metal and oxide composite catalysts. However, the approach to form a substantial interface is still limited. In this work, we report a facile one-pot coprecipitation method to synthetize novel silver and silver-doped ceria (Ag/CeO) nanocomposites. This catalyst provides a rich 3D interface and high Ce concentration (33.6%), both of which are beneficial for ECR to CO. As a result, Ag/CeO exhibits a 99% faradaic efficiency and 10.5 A g mass activity to convert CO into CO at an overpotential of 0.83 V. The strong interfacial interaction between Ag and CeO may enable the presence of surface Ce and guarantee the improved durability during the electrolysis. We also develop numerical simulation to understand the local pH effect on the ECR performance and propose that the superior ECR performance of Ag/CeO is mainly due to the accelerated CO formation rate rather than the suppressed hydrogen evolution reaction.