Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ to valuable chemicals using electricity from renewable sources is a promising approach to realize the carbon cycle. Here, a novel bimetallic nitrogen-doped carbon catalyst (M-N-C, where M denotes the metal) CoCu–N–C electrocatalyst has been synthesized by pyrolyzing a copper-doped cobalt(II) acetate–phenanthroline complex formed from the metal acetates and 1,10-phenanthroline dissolved in ethanol. The optimal CoCu–N–C catalyst with molar ratio of Cu/(Co + Cu) = 0.15 displayed superior performance, enabling a faradaic efficiency of CO production of 76.5% at an overpotential of 0.57 V as well as an increased CO current density of 8.48 mA cm⁻² at −0.98 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (far superior than the Co–N–C of 4.20 mA cm⁻² and Cu–N–C of 0.07 mA cm⁻²) and a decreased charge-transfer resistance compared with Co–N–C and Cu–N–C catalysts. The addition of Cu, which serves as a structure promoter to improve the dispersion of Co, thereby providing sufficient Co-N_x active sites for the electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (CRR). Moreover, doping Cu changes the electronic environment around Co slightly and promotes the charge transfer capability so that reduces the energy barrier of potential-limiting energy, thereby improving the CRR performance of catalyst.

_{使用来自可再生能源的电力将 CO 2}电化学还原为有价值的化学品是实现碳循环的有前景的方法。在这里，一种新型双金属氮掺杂碳催化剂（MNC，其中 M 表示金属）CoCu-N-C电催化剂是通过热解由金属乙酸盐和 1 形成的铜掺杂的乙酸钴 (II)-菲咯啉配合物合成的， 10-菲咯啉溶于乙醇。摩尔比为 Cu/(Co + Cu) = 0.15 的最佳 CoCu-N-C 催化剂表现出优异的性能，在 0.57 V 的过电位下，CO 的法拉第效率为 76.5%，CO 电流密度为8.48毫安厘米^-2在 -0.98 V 时与可逆氢电极相比（远优于 4.20 mA cm ^-2的 Co -N-C 和 0.07 mA cm ^-2的 Cu-N-C ），并且与 Co-N- 相比，电荷转移电阻降低C和Cu-N-C催化剂。添加Cu作为结构促进剂以改善Co的分散，从而为电化学CO ₂还原反应（CRR）提供足够的Co-N _x活性位点。此外，掺杂Cu略微改变了Co周围的电子环境，提高了电荷转移能力，从而降低了限位能的能垒，从而提高了催化剂的CRR性能。