Asymmetric gradient orbital interaction of hetero-diatomic active sites for promoting C − C coupling

Autor: Jin Ming Wang, Qin Yao Zhu, Jeong Heon Lee, Tae Gyun Woo, Yue Xing Zhang, Woo-Dong Jang, Tae Kyu Kim
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nature Communications, Vol 14, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2041-1723
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39580-5
Popis: Abstract Diatomic-site catalysts (DACs) garner tremendous attention for selective CO2 photoreduction, especially in the thermodynamical and kinetical mechanism of CO2 to C2+ products. Herein, we first engineer a novel Zn-porphyrin/RuCu-pincer complex DAC (ZnPor-RuCuDAC). The heteronuclear ZnPor-RuCuDAC exhibits the best acetate selectivity (95.1%), while the homoatomic counterparts (ZnPor-Ru2DAC and ZnPor-Cu2DAC) present the best CO selectivity. In-situ spectroscopic measurements reveal that the heteronuclear Ru–Cu sites easily appear C1 intermediate coupling. The in-depth analyses confirm that due to the strong gradient orbital coupling of Ru4d–Cu3d resonance, two formed *CO intermediates of Ru–Cu heteroatom show a significantly weaker electrostatic repulsion for an asymmetric charge distribution, which result from a side-to-side absorption and narrow dihedral angle distortion. Moreover, the strongly overlapped Ru/Cu-d and CO molecular orbitals split into bonding and antibonding orbitals easily, resulting in decreasing energy splitting levels of C1 intermediates. These results collectively augment the collision probability of the two *CO intermediates on heteronuclear DACs. This work first provides a crucial perspective on the symmetry-forbidden coupling mechanism of C1 intermediates on diatomic sites.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals