Enhancing Cu–ligand interaction for efficient CO2 reduction towards multi-carbon products

Abstract

Electrochemical CO₂ reduction (CO₂R) to valuable products provides a promising strategy to enable CO₂ utilization sustainably. Here, we report the strategy of using Cu-DAT (3,5-diamino-1,2,4-triazole) as a catalyst precursor for efficient CO₂ reduction, demonstrating over 80% selectivity towards multicarbon products at 400 mA cm⁻², with intrinsic activity over 19 times higher than that of Cu nanoparticles. The catalyst’s active phase is determined to be metallic copper wrapped with the DAT ligand. We attribute this enhanced CO₂R performance to the accelerated steps of *CO adsorption and C–C coupling induced by the closely cooperated DAT ligand.