Active Sites of Cobalt Phthalocyanine in Electrocatalytic CO₂ Reduction to Methanol

Many metal coordination compounds catalyze CO₂ electroreduction to CO, but cobalt phthalocyanine hybridized with conductive carbon such as carbon nanotubes is currently the only one that can generate methanol. The underlying structure–reactivity correlation and reaction mechanism desperately demand elucidation. Here we report the first in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy characterization, combined with ex situ spectroscopic and electrocatalytic measurements, to study CoPc-catalyzed CO₂ reduction to methanol. Molecular dispersion of CoPc on CNT surfaces, as evidenced by the observed electronic interaction between the two, is crucial to fast electron transfer to the active sites and multi-electron CO₂ reduction. CO, the key intermediate in the CO₂-to-methanol pathway, is found to be labile on the active site, which necessitates a high local concentration in the microenvironment to compete with CO₂ for active sites and promote methanol production. A comparison of the electrocatalytic performance of structurally related porphyrins indicates that the bridging aza-N atoms of the Pc macrocycle are critical components of the CoPc active site that produces methanol. In situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy identifies the active site as Co(I) and supports an increasingly non-centrosymmetric Co coordination environment at negative applied potential, likely due to the formation of a Co−CO adduct during the catalysis.