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Updated: Oct 15, 2025

Synthesis and Performance Characterizations of Transition Metal Single Atom Catalyst for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction
Published on: April 10, 2018
Mediated Inner-Sphere Electron Transfer Induces Homogeneous Reduction of CO2 via Through-Space Electronic Conjugation
Shelby L Hooe1, Juan J Moreno1, Amelia G Reid1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, McCormick Road, PO Box 400319, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4319, USA.
Abstract:
The electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 is an appealing method for converting renewable energy sources into value-added chemical feedstocks. We report a co-electrocatalytic system for the reduction of CO2 to CO comprised of a molecular Cr complex and dibenzothiophene-5,5-dioxide (DBTD) as a redox mediator, which achieves high activity (TOF=1.51-2.84×105 s-1 ) and quantitative selectivity. Under aprotic or protic conditions, DBTD produces a co-electrocatalytic response with 1 by coordinating trans to the site of CO2 binding and mediating electron transfer from the electrode with quantitative efficiency for CO. This assembly is reliant on through-space electronic conjugation between the π frameworks of DBTD and the bpy fragment of the catalyst ligand, with contributions from dispersive interactions and weak sulfone coordination.
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