Promoting Electrocatalytic CO <sub>2</sub> Reduction via Oxophilic Amorphous Metal Oxide‐Mediated Interfacial Water Activation and Structure Evolution
Interfacial water serves as the intrinsic proton source for CO<sub>2</sub> hydrogenation, yet synchronizing its activation with on-demand active hydrogen (<sup>*</sup>H) supply without triggering the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) remains challenging. Herein, we construct an oxophilic amorphous MnO<sub>x</sub> overlayer on Ag to regulate the interfacial water network. In situ characterization and theoretical calculations demonstrate that under over 45% of interfacial water reorganizes into an ordered four-coordinate hydrogen-bonded (4-HB-H<sub>2</sub>O) structure under operation, facilitating targeted proton transfer to CO<sub>2</sub> reduction intermediates. The distorted Mn-O polyhedra lower the water dissociation barrier by 0.54 eV while raising the HER barrier by 0.61 eV. It achieves a CO production rate of 12.8 mol h<sup>-1</sup> g<sup>-1</sup> and 68.6% Faraday efficiency (FE) at -1000 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> and maintains >95% FE<sub>CO</sub> over 500 h at -200 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>. It also enables efficient nitrate-to-ammonia conversion with the FE of 88.5 %, and the maximum NH<sub>3</sub> production rate is 831.4 mmol h<sup>-1</sup> g<sup>-1</sup>, and a Zn-CO<sub>2</sub> rechargeable battery with FE<sub>CO</sub> of 98.5% and power density of 2.1 mW cm<sup>-2</sup>. This study underscores the amorphous metal oxide-mediated interfacial water activation as a versatile and scalable strategy for enhancing selectivity in water-involved electrocatalytic reactions.
Authors
- Shanhe Gong
- Guangtong Hai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6657-7687)
- Wenbo Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2208-6072)
- Guoxing Zhu
- Xiaomeng Lv
- Minghui Zhu
- Junpeng Huang
- Xiaozhen Zhang
Institutions
- Jiangsu University (CN)
- Quzhou University (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2026-01-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202514230
- Primary Topic
- Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00