Gray mesoporous SnO₂ catalyst for CO₂ electroreduction with high partial current density and formate selectivity

The mesoporous metal oxide semiconductors exhibit unique chemical and physical characteristics, making them highly desirable for catalysis, electrochemistry, energy conversion, and energy storage applications. Here, we report the facial fabrication of mesoporous gray SnO₂ (MGS) electrocatalysts employing an evaporation-induced co-assembly (EICA) approach, utilizing poly(ethylene oxide)–poly(propylene oxide)–poly(ethylene oxide) triblock copolymers Pluronic P123 (PEO-PPO-PEO) triblock copolymer as a template for electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (eCO₂RR). By sustaining the co-assembly conditions and utilizing a thermal treatment technique based on carbon, gray mesoporous SnO₂ materials with a high density of active sites and oxygen vacancies can be constructed. The MGS materials were employed in eCO₂RR in a flow cell type, which exhibits excellent catalytic activity and selectivity toward formate with a high partial current density of −234 mA cm⁻² and Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 93.60 % at −1.3 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Interestingly, the mesoporous SnO₂ with a 1.5 wt% ratio of Sn precursor to P123 surfactant (MS-1.5@350N-400A) electrode exhibits a high level of Faradaic efficiency (FE) of (98%) at a low overpotential of −0.6 V_RHE, which is a seldom recorded performance for similar systems. A stable FE of 96 ± 1% was observed in the range of −0.6 to −1.2 V_RHE, which is the result of a large surface area (184 m²/g) and a high number of active sites and oxygen vacancies within the mesostructured framework.