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. 2026 Mar 10:e14087.
doi: 10.1002/smll.202514087. Online ahead of print.

Tuning Electronic Effects in P-Block Metal-C60 Catalysts for Highly Selective CO2 Reduction to Formate

Yukun Xiao  1   2 , Jie Chen  2   3 , Ganwen Chen  2 , Xiangrui Geng  2 , Lei Fan  2 , Yishui Ding  2 , Meng Wang  2   4 , Hongqiang Jin  2 , Shibo Xi  5 , Xiang Chen  2   6 , Wei Chen  2   7
Affiliations

Tuning Electronic Effects in P-Block Metal-C60 Catalysts for Highly Selective CO2 Reduction to Formate

Yukun Xiao et al. Small. .

Abstract

Electrochemical CO2 reduction (CO2R) to formate offers a promising pathway toward sustainable chemical production. Although P-block metals display excellent selectivity, a universal approach for electronically tuning their active sites to simultaneously enhance activity and selectivity has remained challenging. In this work, we employ C60 nanosheets as electron-buffering supports to modulate interfacial charge, and hence to improve the performance of P-block metals in CO2R. Compared with pure indium (Pure In) catalyst, the C60 nanosheets supported In nanoclusters catalyst (In-C60) featuring high oxidation state achieves formate-dominated products across wide current densities, with high faradaic efficiency for formate reaching about 93% at 900 mA cm-2 under alkaline conditions and 97% at 700 mA cm-2 in acid, as well as higher stability exceeding 210 h in alkaline media. Operando infrared spectroscopy reveals that In-C60 promotes *OCHO formation, and fixed-potential density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that C60 tunes the In─O antibonding states near the Fermi level, weakening intermediate binding and facilitating the following protonation to formate. The strategy extends to other P-block metals (Bi, Sn, Pb), with the same electronic-tuning effect. This work introduces a generalizable strategy for P-block metal electrocatalysts and a practical route toward efficient, sustainable chemical production.

Keywords: P block metal‐C60; electrochemical CO2 reduction; formate; high current density.

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