Acidic CO2-to-HCOOH electrolysis with industrial-level current on phase engineered tin sulfide

Abstract

AbstractAcidic CO2-to-HCOOH electrolysis represents a sustainable route for value-added CO2 transformations. However, competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acid remains a great challenge for selective CO2-to-HCOOH production, especially in industrial-level current densities. Main group metal sulfides derived S-doped metals have demonstrated enhanced CO2-to-HCOOH selectivity in alkaline and neutral media by suppressing HER and tuning CO2 reduction intermediates. Yet stabilizing these derived sulfur dopants on metal surfaces at large reductive potentials for industrial-level HCOOH production is still challenging in acidic medium. Herein, we report a phase-engineered tin sulfide pre-catalyst (π-SnS) with uniform rhombic dodecahedron structure that can derive metallic Sn catalyst with stabilized sulfur dopants for selective acidic CO2-to-HCOOH electrolysis at industrial-level current densities. In situ characterizations and theoretical calculations reveal the π-SnS has stronger intrinsic Sn-S binding strength than the conventional phase, facilitating the stabilization of residual sulfur species in the Sn subsurface. These dopants effectively modulate the CO2RR intermediates coverage in acidic medium by enhancing *OCHO intermediate adsorption and weakening *H binding. As a result, the derived catalyst (Sn(S)-H) demonstrates significantly high Faradaic efficiency (92.15 %) and carbon efficiency (36.43 %) to HCOOH at industrial current densities (up to −1 A cm−2) in acidic medium.