Boosting CO 2 electroreduction on a Zn electrode via concurrent surface reconstruction and interfacial surfactant modification.

Herein, we report an effective strategy for improving the electrocatalytic CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) performance of a Zn foil electrode via concurrent surface reconstruction and interfacial surfactant modification. The oxide-derived and CTAB-modified Zn electrode (OD-Zn-CTAB) prepared by electrochemically reducing the air-annealed Zn foil electrode in the presence of CTAB exhibits high electrocatalytic activity and selectivity for CO production with a CO partial current density ( j CO ) of 8.2 mA cm -2 and a CO faradaic efficiency (FE CO ) of 90% at -1.0 V vs . the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), greatly outperforming the pristine Zn foil (FE CO = 32.0%; j CO = 0.5 mA cm -2 ) and OD-Zn (FE CO = 77.6%; j CO = 5.0 mA cm -2 ) obtained by electroreduction of annealed Zn. The greatly enhanced CO 2 RR performance of OD-Zn-CTAB can be attributed to the increased number of active sites originating from the surface reconstruction and the formation of a favorable CTAB-modified electrode/electrolyte ( E / E ) interface that can efficiently adsorb and activate CO 2 while inhibiting the competitive H 2 evolution reaction.