Atomically Dispersed Dual-Metal Sites Showing Unique Reactivity and Dynamism for Electrocatalysis

The real structure and in situ evolution of catalysts under working conditions are of paramount importance, especially for bifunctional electrocatalysis. Here, we report asymmetric structural evolution and dynamic hydrogen-bonding promotion mechanism of an atomically dispersed electrocatalyst. Pyrolysis of Co/Ni-doped MAF-4/ZIF-8 yielded nitrogen-doped porous carbons functionalized by atomically dispersed Co-Ni dual-metal sites with an unprecedented N8V4 structure, which can serve as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting. More importantly, the electrocatalyst showed remarkable activation behavior due to the in situ oxidation of the carbon substrate to form C-OH groups. Density functional theory calculations suggested that the flexible C-OH groups can form reversible hydrogen bonds with the oxygen evolution reaction intermediates, giving a bridge between elementary reactions to break the conventional scaling relationship.

Flexible Cuprous Triazolate Frameworks as Highly Stable and Efficient Electrocatalysts for CO2 Reduction with Tunable C2 H4 /CH4 Selectivity

Cu-based metal-organic frameworks have attracted much attention for electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction, but they are generally instable and difficult to control the product selectivity. We report flexible Cu(I) triazolate frameworks as efficient, stable, and tunable electrocatalysts for CO₂ reduction to C₂ H₄ /CH₄ . By changing the size of ligand side groups, the C₂ H₄ /CH₄ selectivity ratio can be gradually tuned and inversed from 11.8 : 1 to 1 : 2.6, giving C₂ H₄ , CH₄ , and hydrocarbon selectivities up to 51 %, 56 %, and 77 %, respectively. After long-term electrocatalysis, they can retain the structures/morphologies without formation of Cu-based inorganic species. Computational simulations showed that the coordination geometry of Cu(I) changed from triangular to tetrahedral to bind the reaction intermediates, and two adjacent Cu(I) cooperated for C-C coupling to form C₂ H₄ . Importantly, the ligand side groups controlled the catalyst flexibility by the steric hindrance mechanism, and the C₂ H₄ pathway is more sensitive than the CH₄ one.