Prof. Wenxing Yang’s group at the Center of Artificial Photosynthesis for Solar Fuels, Westlake University, has recently published a research article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), titled “Operando Raman characterization of unique electroinduced molecular tautomerization in zero-gap electrolyzers promotes CO2 reduction.”
In this work, they developed an operando Raman approach tailored for zero-gap membrane electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyzers and, for the first time, directly observed an electroinduced thiol-thione tautomerization of 4-mercaptopyridine on Cu cathode surfaces under industrially relevant current densities. This unique interfacial transformation, which appears in MEA operation but not in conventional flow-cell conditions, reshapes the local triple-phase microenvironment by suppressing carbonate formation, modulating water accessibility and local alkalinity, and promoting earlier formation of adsorbed CO intermediates—together enabling markedly improved CO2-to-C2+ selectivity and energy efficiency.
Ph.D. student Ling Li is the first author, and Prof. Wenxing Yang is the corresponding author.