High-Curvature Transition-Metal Chalcogenide Nanostructures with a Pronounced Proximity Effect Enable Fast and Selective CO 2 Electroreduction.

A considerable challenge in the conversion of carbon dioxide into useful fuels comes from the activation of CO ₂ to CO ₂ ^.- or other intermediates, which often requires precious-metal catalysts, high overpotentials, and/or electrolyte additives (e.g., ionic liquids). We report a microwave heating strategy for synthesizing a transition-metal chalcogenide nanostructure that efficiently catalyzes CO ₂ electroreduction to carbon monoxide (CO). We found that the cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanoneedle arrays exhibit an unprecedented current density of 212 mA cm ^-2 with 95.5±4.0 % CO Faraday efficiency at -1.2 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE; without iR correction). Experimental and computational studies show that the high-curvature CdS nanostructured catalyst has a pronounced proximity effect which gives rise to large electric field enhancement, which can concentrate alkali-metal cations resulting in the enhanced CO ₂ electroreduction efficiency.
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