Probing Cation Effects on *CO Intermediates from Electroreduction of CO2 through Operando Raman Spectroscopy

Cations in an electrolyte modulate microenvironments near the catalyst surface and affect product distribution from an electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction, and thus, their interaction with intermediate states has been tried to be probed. Herein, we directly observed the cation effect on *CO intermediates on the Cu(OH) 2 -derived catalyst in real time through operando surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy at high overpotentials (−1.0 V RHE ). Atop *CO peaks are composed of low-frequency binding *CO (*CO LFB ) and high-frequency binding *CO (*CO HFB ) because of their adsorption sites. These two *CO intermediates are found to have different sensitivities to the cation-induced field, and each *CO is proposed to be suitably stabilized for efficient C–C coupling. The proportions between *CO HFB and *CO LFB are dependent on the type of alkali cations, and the increases in the *CO HFB ratio have a high correlation with selective C 2 H 4 production under K + and Cs +, indicating that *CO HFB is the dominant and fast active species. In addition, as the hydrated cation size decreases, *CO LFB is more sensitively red-shifted than *CO HFB, which promotes C–C coupling and suppresses C 1 products. Through time-resolved operando measurements, dynamic changes between the two *CO species are observed, showing the rapid initial adsorption of *CO HFB and subsequently reaching a steady ratio between *CO LFB and *CO HFB .