Poly(ionic liquid) nanovesicles via polymerization induced self-assembly and their stabilization of Cu nanoparticles for tailored CO2 electroreduction.

Herein, we report a straightforward, scalable synthetic route towards poly(ionic liquid) (PIL) homopolymer nanovesicles (NVs) with a tunable particle size of 50 to 120 nm and a shell thickness of 15 to 60 nm via one-step free radical polymerization induced self-assembly. By increasing monomer concentration for polymerization, their nanoscopic morphology can evolve from hollow NVs to dense spheres, and finally to directional worms, in which a multilamellar packing of PIL chains occurred in all samples. The transformation mechanism of NVs' internal morphology is studied in detail by coarse-grained simulations, revealing a correlation between the PIL chain length and the shell thickness of NVs. To explore their potential applications, PIL NVs with varied shell thickness are in situ functionalized with ultra-small (1 ∼ 3 nm in size) copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) and employed as electrocatalysts for CO2 electroreduction. The composite electrocatalysts exhibit a 2.5-fold enhancement in selectivity towards C1 products (e.g., CH4), compared to the pristine CuNPs. This enhancement is attributed to the strong electronic interactions between the CuNPs and the surface functionalities of PIL NVs. This study casts new aspects on using nanostructured PILs as new electrocatalyst supports in CO2 conversion to C1 products.