A Novel Manner of Anchoring Cobalt Phthalocyanine on Edge-Defected Carbon for Highly Electrocatalytic CO Reduction.

Cobalt phthalocyanine anchored on carbon material has attracted an enormous amount of attention due to its superior performance in electrocatalytic CO reduction. However, the interaction between cobalt phthalocyanine and the carbon substrate remains problematic, and the role of intrinsic carbon defects is unfortunately ignored in the anchoring of cobalt phthalocyanine on carbon. Herein, new interactions between the bridging N atoms of cobalt phthalocyanine and the edge defects of carbon have been discovered, which result in a novel model of anchoring of cobalt phthalocyanine on ketjen black carbon. Such anchored cobalt phthalocyanine has been found to be responsible for superior catalysis for electrochemical reduction of CO to CO with high selectivity and low overpotential.