Synergistic Effect in a Metal-Organic Framework Boosting the Electrochemical CO2 Overall Splitting

It is a very important but still challenging task to develop bifunctional electrocatalysts for highly efficient CO2 overall splitting. Herein, we report a stable metal-organic framework (denoted as PcNi-Co-O), composed of (2,3,9,10,16,17,23,24-octahydroxyphthalocyaninato)nickel(II) (PcNi-(O-)8) ligands and the planar CoO4 nodes, for CO2 overall splitting. When working as both cathode and anode catalysts (i.e., PcNi-Co-O||PcNi-Co-O), PcNi-Co-O achieved a commercial-scale current density of 123 mA cm-2 (much higher than the reported values (0.2-12 mA cm-2)) with a Faradic efficiency (CO) of 98% at a low cell voltage of 4.4 V. Mechanism studies suggested the synergistic effects between two active sites, namely, (i) electron transfer from CoO4 to PcNi sites under electric fields, resulting in the raised oxidizability/reducibility of CoO4/PcNi sites, respectively; (ii) the energy-level matching of cathode and anode catalysts can reduce the energy barrier of electron transfer between them and improve the performance of CO2 overall splitting.

Automated summary

In this study, a stable metal-organic framework (PcNi-Co-O) was reported as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for efficient CO2 overall splitting. PcNi-Co-O achieved a commercial-scale current density of 123 mA cm-2 and a Faradic efficiency (CO) of 98% at a low cell voltage of 4.4 V when used as both cathode and anode catalysts. Mechanism studies revealed the synergistic effects between two active sites and the energy-level matching of cathode and anode catalysts.