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Methanol steam reforming (MSR) provides an alternative way for efficient production and safe transportation of hydrogen but requires harsh conditions and complicated purification processes. In this work, an efficient electrochemical‐assisted MSR reaction for pure H2 production at lower temperature (~140 °C) is developed by coupling the electrocatalysis reaction into the MSR in a polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis reactor. By electrochemically assisted, the two critical steps including the methanol dehydrogenation and water‐gas shift reaction are accelerated, which is attributed to decreasing the methanol dehydrogenation energy and promoting the dissociation of H2O to OH* by the applied potential. Furthermore, the reduced H2 partial pressure by the hydrogen oxidation and reduction process further promotes MSR. The combination of these advantages not only efficiently decreases the MSR temperature but also achieves the high rate of hydrogen production of 505 mmol H2 g Pt−1 h−1 with exceptionally high H2 selectivity (99 %) at 180 °C and a low voltage (0.4 V), and the productivity is about 30‐fold than that of traditional MSR. This study opens up a new avenue to design novel electrolysis cells for hydrogen production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many metal coordination compounds catalyze CO2 electroreduction to CO, but cobalt phthalocyanine hybridized with conductive carbon such as carbon nanotubes is currently the only one that can generate methanol. The underlying structure–reactivity correlation and reaction mechanism desperately demand elucidation. Here we report the first in situ X‐ray absorption spectroscopy characterization, combined with ex situ spectroscopic and electrocatalytic measurements, to study CoPc‐catalyzed CO2 reduction to methanol. Molecular dispersion of CoPc on CNT surfaces, as evidenced by the observed electronic interaction between the two, is crucial to fast electron transfer to the active sites and multi‐electron CO2 reduction. CO, the key intermediate in the CO2‐to‐methanol pathway, is found to be labile on the active site, which necessitates a high local concentration in the microenvironment to compete with CO2 for active sites and promote methanol production. A comparison of the electrocatalytic performance of structurally related porphyrins indicates that the bridging aza‐N atoms of the Pc macrocycle are critical components of the CoPc active site that produces methanol. In situ X‐ray absorption spectroscopy identifies the active site as Co(I) and supports an increasingly non‐centrosymmetric Co coordination environment at negative applied potential, likely due to the formation of a Co−CO adduct during the catalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuning the anionic site of catalyst supports can impact reaction pathways by creating active sites on the support or influencing metal‐support interactions when using supported metal nanoparticles. This study focuses on CO2 hydrogenation over supported Cu nanoparticles, revealing a 3‐fold increase in methanol yield when replacing oxygen anions with hydrides in the perovskite support (Cu/BaTiO2.8H0.2 yields ~146 mg/h/gCu vs. Cu/BaTiO3 yields ~50 mg/h/gCu). The contrast suggests that significant roles are played by the support hydrides in the reaction. Temperature programmed reaction and isotopic labelling studies indicate that BaTiO2.8H0.2 surface hydride species follow a Mars van Krevelen mechanism in CO2 hydrogenation, promoting methanol production. High‐pressure steady‐state isotopic transient kinetic analysis (SSITKA) studies suggest that Cu/BaTiO2.8H0.2 possesses both a higher density and more active and selective sites for methanol production compared to Cu/BaTiO3. An operando high‐pressure diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy (DRIFTS)‐SSITKA study shows that formate species are the major surface intermediates over both catalysts, and the subsequent hydrogenation steps of formate are likely rate‐limiting. However, the catalytic reactivity of Cu/BaTiO2.8H0.2 towards the formate species is much higher than Cu/BaTiO3, likely due to the altered electronic structure of interface Cu sites by the hydrides in the support as validated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]