CO

Efficient reduction of carbon dioxide to useful fuels and chemicals is an important research goal in artificial photosynthesis. Significant progress has been made for the C1 products, CO and HCOO−. We report here a procedure based on the use of ultrasmall, monodispersed Cu and Ag bimetallic nanoparticles on thin, electrochemically polymerized poly-Fe(vbpy)3(PF6)2 films. They reduce CO2 to acetate at pH 7 in aqueous HCO3− solutions at relatively high efficiencies with significant rate enhancements with added benzotriazole. In the sequence of clusters, the most efficient results for acetate production were obtained in films of (Cu)2,(Ag)3 with a faradaic efficiency of 21.2% for acetate from CO2 at −1.33 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode in 0.5 M KHCO3 with 8 ppm of added benzotriazole at 0 °C.