In Situ Fabrication and Reactivation of Highly Selective and Stable Ag Catalysts for Electrochemical CO(2) Conversion

[Image: see text] In this work, the highly selective and stable electrocatalytic reduction of CO(2) to CO on nanostructured Ag electrocatalysts is presented. The Ag electrocatalysts are synthesized by the electroreduction of Ag(2)CO(3) formed by in situ anodic-etching of Ag foil in a KHCO(3) electrolyte. After 3 min of this etching treatment, the Ag(2)CO(3)-derived nanostructured Ag electrocatalysts are capable of producing CO with up to 92% Faradaic efficiency at an overpotential as low as 290 mV, which surpasses all of the reported Ag catalysts at identical conditions to date. In addition, the anodic-etched Ag retained ∼90% catalytic selectivity in the electroreduction of CO(2) to CO for more than 100 h. The Ag(2)CO(3)-derived Ag is able to facilitate the activation of CO(2) via reduction of the activation energy barrier of the initial electron transfer and provide an increased number of active sites, resulting in the dramatically improved catalytic activity for the reduction of CO(2) to CO.