MOF Encapsulating N‐Heterocyclic Carbene‐Ligated Copper Single‐Atom Site Catalyst towards Efficient Methane Electrosynthesis

Abstract

Abstract The exploitation of highly efficient carbon dioxide reduction (CO 2 RR) electrocatalyst for methane (CH 4 ) electrosynthesis has attracted great attention for the intermittent renewable electricity storage but remains challenging. Here, N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC)‐ligated copper single atom site (Cu SAS) embedded in metal–organic framework is reported (2Bn‐Cu@UiO‐67), which can achieve an outstanding Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 81 % for the CO 2 reduction to CH 4 at −1.5 V vs. RHE with a current density of 420 mA cm −2 . The CH 4 FE of our catalyst remains above 70 % within a wide potential range and achieves an unprecedented turnover frequency (TOF) of 16.3 s −1 . The σ donation of NHC enriches the surface electron density of Cu SAS and promotes the preferential adsorption of CHO* intermediates. The porosity of the catalyst facilitates the diffusion of CO 2 to 2Bn‐Cu, significantly increasing the availability of each catalytic center.