Chelating N‐Heterocyclic Carbene Ligands Enable Tuning of Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction to Formate and Carbon Monoxide: Surface Organometallic Chemistry

Author(s): Cao, Z; Derrick, JS; Xu, J; Gao, R; Gong, M; Nichols, EM; Smith, PT; Liu, X; Wen, X; Coperet, C; Chang, CJ | Abstract: © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH a Co. KGaA, Weinheim Reported here is the chelate effect as a design principle for tuning heterogeneous catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction. Palladium functionalized with a chelating tris-N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand (Pd-timtmbMe) exhibits a 32-fold increase in activity for electrochemical reduction of CO2 to C1 products with high Faradaic efficiency (FEC1=86 %) compared to the parent unfunctionalized Pd foil (FE=23 %), and with sustained activity relative to a monodentate NHC-ligated Pd electrode (Pd-mimtmbMe). The results highlight the contributions of the chelate effect for tailoring and maintaining reactivity at molecular-materials interfaces enabled by surface organometallic chemistry.