Plasmonic Ag-decorated Cu 2 O nanowires for boosting photoelectrochemical CO 2 reduction to multi-carbon products.

The generation of multi-carbon products on the Cu 2 O photocathode remains a great challenge. Herein, effective charge separation and surface catalytic reaction are achieved for photoelectrochemical CO 2 reduction through plasmon metal (Ag) decoration on Cu 2 O nanowires. The Cu 2 O/Ag composite photocathode achieves a 47.7% faradaic efficiency for CH 3 COOH and the generation rate is 212.7 μmol cm -2 h -1 under illumination, which is about five times that in dark (44.4 μmol cm -2 h -1 ) at -0.7 V vs. RHE.