{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,18]],"date-time":"2026-08-18T04:59:07Z","timestamp":1787029147298,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"17","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,24]],"date-time":"2025-08-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1755993600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"NMR facility at the Center for Microscopy and Analysis, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA)"},{"name":"CSC\u2013IT Center for Science in Finland"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Molecules"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Silver is a promising electrocatalyst for electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction owing to its high selectivity and efficiency for CO production. However, it still faces a fundamental trade-off between reaction activity and stability. Here, we developed a three-dimensional coral-like porous silver (CP-Ag) catalyst through seed-assisted nanoparticle attachment synthesis, which creates a unique architecture featuring interconnected pores and stable grain boundaries (GBs) between constituent Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs). Compared to normal Ag NPs, CP-Ag demonstrates superior catalytic performance, maintaining &gt;90% Faradaic efficiency (FE) for CO across a wide potential range (\u22120.6 to \u22121.0 V vs. RHE) while achieving 2-times higher current density. Importantly, CP-Ag demonstrated an impressive long-term stability by sustaining nearly 90% FE for CO approximately 40 h at a current density of \u221250 mA cm\u22122 in a flow cell. The enhanced catalytic performance arises from three factors: (1) the three-dimensional coral-like morphology increases accessible active sites and promotes charge transfer efficiency; (2) stable GBs between interconnected nanoparticles increase reaction activity; (3) more moderate binding on Ag (100) preferentially promotes *CO intermediate formation. Our findings highlight the importance of simultaneously engineering both morphological and crystallographic features to optimize silver catalysts for CO2 conversion.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/molecules30173475","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,25]],"date-time":"2025-08-25T00:09:53Z","timestamp":1756080593000},"page":"3475","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Grain Boundary Engineering in 3D Porous Silver Electrocatalysts for Enhanced CO2-to-CO Conversion"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"30","author":[{"given":"Xiaoqian","family":"Xu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Song","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yixiang","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ying","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9360-3457","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Assa Aravindh Sasikala","family":"Devi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Research Unit of Sustainable Chemistry, Faculty of Technology, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland"},{"name":"Department of Physics, Durham University, Lower Mountjoy, South Rd, Durham DH1 3LE, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Feng","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"218","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jiec.2017.05.036","article-title":"Electrochemical preparation of Ag\/Cu and Au\/Cu foams for electrochemical conversion of CO2 to CO","volume":"54","author":"Lee","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. 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