Golden contest: CO₂ electroreduction in room‐temperature ionic liquids is highly sensitive towards the gold electrode surface structure. An Au(110) surface is by far the most active among low‐index Au(hkl) facets irrespective of the chemical nature of the IL used as the electrolyte.The activity of low‐index Au(hkl) single crystal electrodes towards CO₂ electroreduction (CO₂RR) was examined for eight room temperature ionic liquids (ILs) by means of cyclic voltammetry. We demonstrate that CO₂RR is highly sensitive towards the electrode surface structure, with the Au(110) surface being by far the most active irrespective of the chemical nature of the IL used as electrolyte. The activity of all three low‐index Au(hkl) surfaces towards CO₂RR decreases upon multiple potential cycling. In situ scanning tunneling microscopy indicates that this deactivation is related to massive Au surface restructuring processes taking place in ILs due to the potential–induced reconstruction and lifting of the surface reconstruction. Additionally, the Au(111) surface undergoes severe etching at the potentials of CO₂RR, whereas we do not observe this etching process for Au(110).

中文翻译：

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离子液体中低指数金单晶电极上CO2还原的表面结构敏感性

黄金大赛：室温离子液体中的CO ₂电还原对金电极的表面结构高度敏感。不管用作电解质的IL的化学性质如何，Au（110）表面是低指数Au（hkl）面中最活跃的表面。低指数Au（hkl）单晶电极对CO _2的活性通过循环伏安法检测了八种室温离子液体（IL）的电还原（CO ₂ RR）。我们证明了CO ₂RR对电极表面结构高度敏感，无论用作电解质的IL的化学性质如何，Au（110）表面到目前为止都是最活跃的。所有三个低指数的Au（hkl）表面对CO ₂ RR的活性均会随着多次潜在循环而降低。原位扫描隧道显微镜表明，这种失活与ILs中大量的金表面重构过程有关，这是由于电位诱导的重构和表面重构的解除。此外，Au（111）表面在CO ₂ RR的电势下经历了严重的腐蚀，而我们没有观察到Au（110）的腐蚀过程。