Demonstrates efficient CO2 to CH4 conversion in fluorine-rich carbon quantum dots, suggesting improvements for energy storage.
Electrochemical CO 2 reduction to CH 4 represents an attractive route for carbon recycling and energy storage, but remains limited by sluggish hydrogenation kinetics and ineffective management of reactive hydrogen species. Herein, we develop a molecular fusion strategy to synthesize fluorine‐rich carbon quantum dots (F1‐CQDs) featuring an unprecedented F content of up to 28.8 at. % in optimized F1‐CQDs. The catalyst delivers a CH 4 Faraday efficiency of 63.2% together with a CH 4 partial current density of 210.8 mA cm −2 in a flow cell. Combined in situ spectroscopy and theoretical calculations reveal that semi‐ionic C‐F bonds create abundant Lewis basic sites that selectively stabilize key CO 2 ‐reduction intermediates, while also regulating hydrogen dynamics by facilitating water activation and transient active hydrogen (*H) formation on neighboring carbon sites. This synergistic dual‐site functionality enhances the effective *H availability for stepwise hydrogenation without excessively favoring the competing hydrogen evolution reaction, as clarified by isotope labeling and *H‐scavenging experiments. This work establishes a clear structure‐activity relationship between C‐F bonding and catalytic performance, and provides a general design principle for metal‐free electrocatalysts through the coupled engineering of intermediate stabilization and hydrogen kinetics.
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Zhang et al. (2026) studied this question.
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