Elucidation of the Dynamic Structure of Binuclear Cu(II) Phenanthroline Complex for C-C coupling during Electrochemical CO2 reduction reacti

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (eCO2RR) holds promise for converting carbon emissions and renewable energy into valuable chemicals. Cu-based catalysts offer an alternative to Fischer-Tropsch processes, but research to date has mainly focused on nanostructured Cu particles, neglecting active sites at smaller scales like single-atom and dimers. We recently developed a new molecular binuclear Cu phenanthroline complex catalyst for eCO2RR, and its performance outperforms typical metallic Cu surfaces. Although our post-mortem characterization did not trace the phase evolution, suggesting considerable stability, the active sites may undergo reversible alterations (to particles) under potentials. To address this, we propose in situ time-resolved X-ray absorption spectroscopy to track the oxidation and coordination state evolution of the binuclear Cu site under eCO2RR condition, correlating with the product spectrum to map the in-reaction dynamic structure-reactivity relation.