A tunable bioinspired process of SnO2 NPs synthesis for electrochemical CO2-into-formate conversion
Anirban Chowdhury, Chandra Bhan, Nageswara Rao Peela, Animes Kumar Golder
Abstract
The present work aims at the bioinspired synthesis of SnO2 NPs, labeled as SnO2(bio) NPs using S. edule fruit. A mechanistic route of synthesis of SnO2 NPs from its inorganic precursor has been proposed herewith. Carbon paper decorated SnO2(bio) NPs and its calcined counterpart SnO2(bio)- 800 NPs (800 °C) were employed for electrochemical CO2 reduction. Both SnO2(bio) NPs and SnO2(bio)- 800 NPs were active towards CO2 to formate (HCOO−) as the single product, in the liquid phase of 0.5 M KHCO3 aqueous electrolyte and the maximum faradaic efficiency reached to 75.6–84.0%, respectively for 1 h of the chronoamperometric test. The predominant crystalline (110) facet in SnO2(bio)- 800 NPs might have caused a significant boost in faradaic efficiency for formate formation.