What It Takes for Imidazolium Cations to Promote Electrochemical Reduction of CO.

Imidazolium cations enhance the performance of several electrodes in converting CO to CO in non-aqueous media. In this publication, we elucidate the origin of the function of imidazolium cations when exposed to Au electrodes in anhydrous acetonitrile in CO atmosphere. We demonstrate that imidazolium cations lead to unprecedentedly low overpotentials for CO reduction to CO on Au, with ∼100% Faradaic efficiency.