Selective CO2 Electroreduction from Tuneable Naphthalene-Based Porous Polyimide Networks

A series of porous polyimides (pPIs) have been synthesised and their surface areas and pore sizes optimised by the previously reported Bristol-X'an-Jiatong (BXJ) approach. We demonstrate how this approach can be used to tune the porous network properties to target and tune their ability to capture CO₂. Once optimised, these porous organic frameworks were utilised, for the first time, as electrocatalysts for the conversion of CO₂. The excellent Faradaic efficiencies (FEs) for the conversion of CO₂ to formate (91%) and methanol (85%) present exciting opportunities for the generation of useful fuels and feedstocks from CO₂. In addition, the ability to directly address and select the conversion products through tuning of the porous materials’ properties highlights the potential of our approach, and more generally for a wide range of organic frameworks, as future metal-free CO₂ reduction catalysts.