Utilisation of carbon dioxide and nitrate for urea electrosynthesis with a Cu-based metal-organic framework.

It is important and challenging to utilise CO 2 and NO 3 - as a feedstock for electrosynthesis of urea. Herein, we reported a stable 2D metal-organic framework (MOF) Cu-HATNA, possessing planar CuO 4 active sites, as an efficient electrocatalyst for coupling CO 2 and NO 3 - into urea, achieving a high yield rate of 1.46 g h -1 g cat -1 with a current density of 44.2 mA cm -1 at -0.6 V vs. RHE. This performance surpasses most of the previously reported catalysts, revealing the great prospects of MOFs in sustainable urea synthesis.