Spin polarization strategy to deploy proton resource over atomic-level metal sites for highly selective CO_(2) electrolysis

Unlocking of the extremely inert C=O bond during electrochemical CO_(2) reduction demands subtle regulation on a key“resource”,protons,necessary for intermediate conversion but also readily trapped in water splitting,which is still challenging for developing efficient single-atom catalysts limited by their structural simplicity usually incompetent to handle this task.Incorporation of extra functional units should be viable.Herein,a proton deployment strategy is demonstrated via“atomic and nanostructured iron(A/N-Fe)pairs”,comprising atomically dispersed iron active centers spin-polarized by nanostructured iron carbide ferromagnets,to boost the critical protonation steps.The as-designed catalyst displays a broad window(300 mV)for CO selectivity>90%(98%maximum),even outperforming numerous cutting-edge M–N–C systems.The well-placed control of proton dynamics by A/N-Fe can promote*COOH/*CO formation and simultaneously suppress H2 evolution,benefiting from the magnetic-proximity-induced exchange splitting(spin polarization)that properly adjusts energy levels of the Fe sites’d-shells,and further those of the adsorbed intermediates’antibonding molecular orbitals.

Infrared spectroscopy of N-methylacetamide in water from high-level QM/MM calculations

The infrared （IR） spectra of the N-methylacetamide molecule in water are calculated by using the MD simulation with high-level QM]MM corrections. The B3LYP and MP2 levels with 6-31 I＋＋G＊＊ basis set are used for the QM region, respectively, Our results show all IR spectra at the B3LYP level are well consistent with the corresponding MP2 results. A dynamical charge fluctuation is observed for each atom along the simulation trajectories due to the electrostatic polarization （EP） effects from surrounding solvent environment, We find that the QM/MM corrected IR spectra satisfactorily reprodnce the experimental vibrational features of amide 1-11I modes.