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Updated: Sep 30, 2026

Versatile Technique to Produce a Hierarchical Design in Nanoporous Gold
Published on: February 10, 2023
Concavity promotes CO selectivity for electrochemical CO2 reduction on gold nanoparticles
Porvajja Nagarajan1, Devansh ShaileshKumar Ramani1, JiHyeon Cha1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, USA. Michael_Ross@uml.edu.
Abstract:
Gold is highly selective for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO in aqueous media; however, performance is sensitive to surface structure and morphology. Here, size- and shape-matched pairs of concave and non-concave gold nanoparticles are compared. Concave cubic and concave stella octangula are shown to have greater intrinsic activity, higher CO faradaic efficiencies, and improved CO/H2 ratios compared to their non-concave counterparts. Importantly, the concave stella octangula maintains >85% CO selectivity -0.6 VRHE for 8 hours of electrochemical CO2 reduction.
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