Efficient electroreduction of CO to acetate using a metal-azolate framework with dicopper active sites.

Electrochemical reduction of CO to value-added products, especially C 2 products, provides a potential approach to achieve carbon neutrality and overcome the energy crisis. Herein, we report a metal-azolate framework (CuBpz) with dicopper active sites as an electrocatalyst for the electrochemical CO reduction reaction (eCORR). As a result, CuBpz achieved an impressive faradaic efficiency (FE) of 47.8% for yielding acetate with a current density of -200 mA cm -2 , while no obvious degradation was observed over 60 hours of continuous operation at a current density of -200 mA cm -2 . Mechanism studies revealed that the dicopper site can promote C-C coupling between two C 1 intermediates, thereby being conducive to the generation of the key *CH 2 COOH intermediate.