Electrochemical conversion produces efficient catalysts for formic acid from CO2, suggesting new avenues for CO2 utilization.
Copper sulfide‐based materials (Cu x S) have been shown to exhibit promising electrocatalytic activity toward the electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) into formic acid. Nevertheless, obtaining fine control over the structure and chemical composition of these catalysts is often a key obstacle that limits the ability to extract CO 2 RR‐based structure–activity relations. Here, to this end, we show that using an electrochemical conversion of a copper‐based metal–organic framework into Cu x S, one can achieve precise tuning of the resulting catalyst's composition as well as its copper‐to‐sulfur atomic distribution. As an outcome, it allowed us to synthesize a Cu 2 S‐rich electrocatalyst, which substantially improves formic acid Faradaic efficiency to above 90%. Furthermore, via operando Raman spectroscopy analysis we were able to: (i) determine that the Cu x S converts CO 2 ‐to‐formic acid by a carbon‐bound *COOH intermediate, and (ii) follow the Cu x S's electrochemical transformation during catalytic working conditions. Consequently, these findings provide new tools to develop highly tunable and efficient electrocatalysts for a large variety of electrochemical applications.
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Fryder et al. (2026) studied this question.
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