Single-Site Metal-Organic Framework and Copper Foil Tandem Catalyst for Highly Selective CO Electroreduction to C H.

Tandem catalysis is a promising way to break the limitation of linear scaling relationship for enhancing efficiency, and the desired tandem catalysts for electrochemical CO reduction reaction (CO RR) are urgent to be developed. Here, a tandem electrocatalyst created by combining Cu foil (CF) with a single-site Cu(II) metal-organic framework (MOF), named as Cu-MOF-CF, to realize improved electrochemical CO RR performance, is reported. The Cu-MOF-CF shows suppression of CH , great increase in C H selectivity (48.6%), and partial current density of C H at -1.11 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode. The outstanding performance of Cu-MOF-CF for CO RR results from the improved microenvironment of the Cu active sites that inhibits CH production, more CO intermediate produced by single-site Cu-MOF in situ for CF, and the enlarged active surface area by porous Cu-MOF. This work provides a strategy to combine MOFs with copper-based electrocatalysts to establish high-efficiency electrocatalytic CO RR.