Metal-organic framework-derived silver/copper-oxide catalyst for boosting the productivity of carbon dioxide...

Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ into valuable multi-carbon (C₂) chemicals holds promise for mitigating CO₂ emissions and enabling artificial carbon cycling. However, achieving high selectivity remains challenging due to the limited activity and active sites of CC coupling catalysts. Herein, we report an Ag-modified Cu-oxide catalyst (CuO/Ag@C) derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOF), capable of efficiently converting CO₂ to C₂H₄. The MOF-derived porous carbon confines the size of metal nanoparticles, ensuring sufficient exposure of active sites. Remarkably, the CuO/Ag@C catalyst achieves an impressive Faradaic efficiency of 48.6% for C₂H₄ at -0.7 V vs. RHE, demonstrating excellent stability. Both experimental results and theoretical calculations indicate that Ag sites promote the production of CO, enhancing the coverage of *CO on Cu sites. Furthermore, the reconfiguration of charge density at the Cu-Ag interface optimizes the electronic states of the reaction sites, reducing the formation energy of the key intermediate *OCCHO, thereby favoring C₂H₄ production effectively. This work provides insight into structurally rational catalyst design for highly active and selective multiphase catalysts.