The Enhanced Local Co Concentration for Efficient Co2 Electrolysis Towards C2 Products on Tandem Active Sites

Electrochemical reduction of CO 2 to C2 products provides a promising approach for controlling the global carbon balance and restoring renewable surplus electricity, while the low CO 2 activation property and slow OC-CO coupling rate lead to unfavorable performance on Cu-based catalysts. Here we designed MOF-derived Co 3 O 4 -CuO x /C nanorods (M-CuCo/C) enabling efficient CO 2 activation and enhanced *CO formation. M-CuCo/C exhibited a total current density of 19.28 mA/cm 2 (-1.05 V), with the highest C2 faradic efficiency (FE) of 79.2% (-0.75 V) as the formation of enhanced local CO environment. Electrocatalytic performance indicated that the increased active sites and faster electron transmission rate were achieved via the tandem strategy. Detailed confirmatory experiments on rotation ring disk electrode (RRDE) and DFT studies revealed that CO 2 could be efficiently converted to CO on Co 3 O 4 sites, forming local CO-enriched environment around CuO x sites and further accelerating the C-C coupling process