Structural reconstruction of BiPbO₂Br nanosheets for electrochemical CO₂ reduction to formate

The electrochemical reduction of CO₂ to value-added products represents a promising strategy to store renewable energy and realize global carbon neutrality. Bi-based materials have attracted extensive attention for formate production from CO₂ reduction. Herein, we employ BiPbO₂Br nanosheets as the bimetallic oxyhalide precursor to prepare a reconstructed Bi-Pb composite catalyst by electroreduction. The resultant catalyst exhibits impressive performance for formate production, including a high partial current density (40 mA cm⁻² at −1.0 V), a high faradaic efficiency (96.6% at −0.9 V), a high energy conversion efficiency (>50% from −0.8 to −1.1 V), and good stability. As compared with the monometallic Bi and Pb counterparts, the Bi-Pb composite catalyst demonstrates superior intrinsic performance, which is attributed to the multiphase composites and abundant heterogeneous interfaces derived from electroreduction induced structural reconstruction of BiPbO₂Br. This work offers an attractive strategy to further improve the performance of Bi catalysts for CO₂ reduction to formate.