Light-driven water splitting and CO2 catalysis are attractive green strategies for addressing global energy demands because they offer efficient ways to store energy in the form of value-added products such as H2, O2 and carbon fuels. However, high reduction potentials (overpotentials), kinetic instabilities and product selectivity are still considerable hurdles in solar energy conversion mechanisms.

Traditional experimental work regarding CO2 catalysis focuses on the formation of so-called C1 products, such as methane, formic acid and methanol. Efforts for efficiently and selectively converting CO2 and H2O into multi-carbon products (such as ethanol and acetic acid) are gaining steam on both the experimental and theoretical level. Of the tried-and-tested catalysts that efficiently convert CO2 to multi-carbon fuel products, elemental Cu is the most successful material to date in heterogeneous settings. Although most research has focused on the behaviour of elemental Cu in targeting a bevy of differently reduced carbon species, other research has suggested that by coordinating Cu cations into ligands, more selective catalysis can be targeted.