Ligand-confined bismuth based nanodots for robust carbon dioxide reduction to liquid fuel at 1 A/cm2

•We prepare ligand-confined Bi based nanodots for robust CO2 reduction.•We prevent the aggregation of ultrasmall Bi-BiOx nanodots by ligand-derived carbon shell.•We realize the CO2-to-formate electroreduction FE of 96% at 1 A/cm2 current density.•We achieve excellent performance by retaining rich edge active sites in electrocatalysis.