Molecular engineering to introduce carbonyl between nickel salophen active sites to enhance electrochemical CO2 reduction to methanol

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 to methanol is a potentially cost-effective strategy reduce the concentration this greenhouse gas while at same time producing value-added chemical. Herein, we detail highly efficient 2D nickel organic framework containing large density dispersed salophen NiN2O2 active sites toward CO2RR methanol. By tuning ligand environment NiN2O2, electrocatalytic activity material can be significantly improved. We prove that by introducing carbonyl group Ni sites, promoted and its product selectivity reaches Faradaic efficiency 27% production − 0.9 V vs RHE. salophen-based π-d conjugated metal-organic presented here thus provides best performance among previously developed nickel-based electrocatalysts.