Boron-Doping Engineering in AgCd Bimetallic Catalyst Enabling Efficient CO Electroreduction to CO and Aqueous Zn-CO Batteries.

The limited adsorption and activation of CO on catalyst and the high energy barrier for intermediate formation hinder the development of electrochemical CO reduction reactions (CORR). Herein, this work reports a boron (B) doping engineering in AgCd bimetals to alleviate the above limitations for efficient CO electroreduction to CO and aqueous Zn-CO batteries. Specifically, the B-doped AgCd bimetallic catalyst (AgCd-B) is prepared via a simple reduction reaction at room temperature. A combination of in situ experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrates that B-doping simultaneously enhances the adsorption and activation of CO and reduces the binding energy of the intermediates by moderating the electronic structure of bimetals. As a result, the AgCd-B catalyst exhibits a high CO Faraday efficiency (FE) of 99% at -0.8 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Additionally, it maintains a FE over 92% at a wide potential window of 600 mV (-0.6 to -1.1 V versus RHE). Furthermore, the AgCd-B catalyst coupled with the Zn anode to assemble aqueous Zn-CO batteries shows a power density of 20.18 mW cm and a recharge time of 33 h.