The electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 into value-added chemicals offers a promising route to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, yet the uncontrollable structural reconstruction and surface rearrangement of electrocatalysts during operation often lead to severe activity degradation. Herein, we reveal that Bi2O2SO4 (BSO) undergoes an irreversible phase transformation into Bi2O2CO3 (BCO) nanosheets accompanied by the partial reduction of Bi3+ to metallic Bi0 under cathodic potentials. A series of BCO/BSO heterojunction catalysts with tunable compositions are synthesized via a mild in situ ion-exchange method. To circumvent the detrimental effects of this dynamic reconstruction, we devise a pre-activation strategy that deliberately completes the structural evolution prior to electrocatalysis. The optimized 20%-BCO/BSO heterojunction achieves a remarkable Faradaic efficiency of 98.4% for formate production in a flow cell at elevated potentials, with >95% FE(HCOOH) over a wide potential window (−0.8 to −1.7 V vs. RHE). In situ infrared spectroscopy elucidates that the reconstructed interface can promote CO2 adsorption, stabilize the *OCHO intermediate, and facilitate HCOOH desorption. This work provides experimental evidence of the reconstruction behaviour of bismuth-based catalysts and offers a rational design method for constructing structurally stable heterojunction electrocatalysts.
Xie et al. (2026) studied this question.