Covalent organic frameworks comprising cobalt porphyrins for catalytic CO ₂ reduction in water

TLDR

Tethering cobalt catalysts into assemblies facilitates purification and reuse. Cobalt porphyrin complexes were assembled into a covalent organic framework. The COF material exhibited markedly improved activity for aqueous electrochemical CO₂ reduction to CO. Lin et al., Science, p.

Abstract

Improving cobalt catalysts Tethering molecular catalysts together is a tried and trusted method for making them easier to purify and reuse. Lin et al. now show that the assembly of a covalent organic framework (COF) structure can also improve fundamental catalytic performance. They used cobalt porphyrin complexes as building blocks for a COF. The resulting material showed greatly enhanced activity for the aqueous electrochemical reduction of CO 2 to CO. Science , this issue p. 1208