Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
It is crucial to achieve continuous production of highly concentrated and pure C 2 chemicals through the electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (eCO 2 RR) for artificial carbon cycling, yet it has remained unattainable until now. Despite one-pot tandem catalysis (dividing the eCO 2 RR to C 2 into two catalytical reactions of CO 2 to CO and CO to C 2 ) offering the potential for significantly enhancing reaction efficiency, its mechanism remains unclear and its performance is unsatisfactory. Herein, we selected different CO 2 -to-CO catalysts and CO-to-acetate catalysts to construct several tandem catalytic systems for the eCO 2 RR to acetic acid. Among them, a tandem catalytic system comprising a covalent organic framework ( PcNi-DMTP ) and a metal–organic framework ( MAF-2 ) as CO 2 -to-CO and CO-to-acetate catalysts, respectively, exhibited a faradaic efficiency of 51.2% with a current density of 410 mA cm –2 and an ultrahigh acetate yield rate of 2.72 mmol m –2 s –1 under neutral conditions. After electrolysis for 200 h, 1 cm –2 working electrode can continuously produce 20 mM acetic acid aqueous solution with a relative purity of 95+%. Comprehensive studies revealed that the performance of tandem catalysts is influenced not only by the CO supply–demand relationship and electron competition between the two catalytic processes in the one-pot tandem system but also by the performance of the CO-to-C 2 catalyst under diluted CO conditions.
Zhu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.