CO 2 reduction to acetate in mixtures of ultrasmall (Cu) n ,(Ag) m bimetallic nanoparticles

Significance 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 (PF 6 ) 2 films. They reduce CO 2 to acetate at pH 7 in aqueous HCO 3 − 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 CO 2 at −1.33 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode in 0.5 M KHCO 3 with 8 ppm of added benzotriazole at 0 °C.