A New Phase Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) Activated Selective CO Reduction into Formate for Underwater Antifouling Glass.

Designing unique electrocatalysts that utilizes carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CORR) for real applications is highly appreciated, yet still suffers from low selectivity, stability, and compatibility. Herein, we first report a new two-dimensional metastable-phase transparent conducting oxide: 1T phase indium tin oxide (m-ITOs) with the space group of P-3m1 (164), which is totally different from that of the stable cubic phase ITO (Ia-3 (206)). The internal indium tin catalytic pairs in m-ITOs trigger the strong electronic coupling, move up the p-band center, and stabilize the adsorption of HCOO* for increased formate production. In a liquid-phase flow cell, m-ITOs exhibit a high CORR electrocatalytic performance with the formate selectivity up to 93 ± 1.9% (83 ± 3.1% for c-SnInO and 74 ± 0.6% for InO/SnO) and remains 97% (58% for c-SnInO and 60% for InO/SnO) of catalytic activity after a 120,000 s stability test. Owing to the efficient formate formation with directly using the absorbed CO in water and high transparent property, m-ITOs exhibit excellent antifouling behavior of inhibiting Chlorella growth without reducing the transparency of itself, encouraging a promising application of observation windows in water.