CO2 electrochemical reduction on metal-organic framework catalysts: current status and future directions

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are modular materials made from inorganic metal ions or clusters bonded through organic linkers to form an ordered, porous network. The high surface area and the tailorable nature of MOFs make them ideal candidates for catalyst design. Therefore, they have been investigated as catalysts for a variety of processes including electrochemical reactions. Herein, we focus on their use as catalysts for the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR), which is a promising technology for converting waste CO2 into valuable carbon-based chemicals. Recent studies have shown that CO2 can be selectively reduced using MOF-based catalysts, furthermore, MOFs in catalysis have the key advantage of using well-defined single-atom active sites. This is helpful to understand and optimize the structural parameters that control their performance towards the CO2RR. Despite these advantages and the promising early results, there are some important limitations that need to be overcome, namely the poor conductivity and stability of MOFs, which need to be addressed in future studies. In addition, more systematic studies are needed to gain fundamental understanding of the structural parameters that control the performance of MOF-based catalysts.