Dynamic Confinement and Interfacial Engineering in Mesoporous Ag@SiO<sub>2</sub> Core–Shell Architecture for Acidic Electrocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub>‐to‐Methane Conversion
Abstract Designing electrocatalysts that can simultaneously suppress the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and stabilize multistep carbon intermediates remains a key challenge for the electroreduction of CO 2 to methane (CH 4 ) under acidic conditions. Herein, a dynamic restraint strategy is proposed to achieve efficient synthesis of CH 4 in acidic electrolyte by synergistic regulation of proton transport and interfacial charge distribution by mesoporous silica coated silver nanoparticles (Ag@SiO 2 ‐ M h). At a high current density of −132.26 mA cm −2 , the Faradaic efficiency of CH 4 reaches 56.6% and remains stable for a long time. The core innovation lies in constructing a bifunctional regulation mechanism at the metal‐non‐metal hybrid interface: the controllable mesopores of SiO 2 form spatially confined proton‐relay channels, and the Si─O─H groups enriched on the surface dynamically regulate proton supply through a hydrogen‐bond network, which accurately drives *CO─*H coupling while inhibiting 60% of HER. And, the electron transfer from Ag to SiO 2 significantly reduces the energy barrier for *CO protonation, promoting the kinetic‐crucial *H─*CO coupling pathway to incline toward CH 4 formation. This strategy breaks through the bottleneck of mutual restriction between activity and stability in traditional catalyst design, and provides a universal solution for complex electrocatalytic systems with multi‐intermediate regulation.
Authors
- Weizhou Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4309-9077)
- Jianping Lai
- Yaodong Yu
- Lei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7275-4846)
- Bin Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9093-3239)
- Gengfeng Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1803-6955)
- Zilong Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3364-3390)
- Hongdong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5407-4211)
- Zhenhui Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2784-4249)
- Tian Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6343-4207)
Institutions
- Qingdao University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Fudan University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Published
- 2025-05-05
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202503126
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.45
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Natural Science Foundation of Qingdao