Molecular Assembled Electrocatalyst for Highly Selective CO₂ Fixation to C₂₊ Products

In certain metalloenzymes, multimetal centers with appropriate primary/secondary coordination environments allow carbon-carbon coupling reactions to occur efficiently and with high selectivity. This same function is seldom realized in molecular electrocatalysts. Herein we synthesized rod-shaped nanocatalysts with multiple copper centers through the molecular assembly of a triphenylphosphine copper complex (CuPPh). The assembled molecular CuPPh catalyst demonstrated excellent electrochemical CO₂ fixation performance in aqueous solution, yielding high-value C₂₊ hydrocarbons (ethene) and oxygenates (ethanol) as the main products. Using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and quasi-in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and reaction intermediate capture, we established that the excellent catalytic performance originated from the large number of double copper centers in the rod-shaped assemblies. Cu-Cu distances in the absence of CO₂ were as long as 7.9 Å, decreasing substantially after binding CO₂ molecules indicating dynamic and cooperative function. The double copper centers were shown to promote carbon-carbon coupling via a CO₂ transfer-coupling mechanism involving an oxalate (OOC-COO) intermediate, allowing the efficient production of C₂₊ products. The assembled CuPPh nanorods showed high activity, excellent stability, and a high Faradaic efficiency (FE) to C₂₊ products (65.4%), with performance comparable to state-of-the-art copper oxide-based catalysts. To our knowledge, our findings demonstrate that harnessing metalloenzyme-like properties in molecularly assembled catalysts can greatly improve the selectivity of CO2RR, promoting the rational design of improved CO2 reduction catalysts.