Recently, researchers from the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering published their groundbreaking research titled “Aggregation-Induced Equidistant Dual Pt Atom Pairs for Effective CO2 Photoreduction to C2H4” in ACS Catalysis (a top-tier journal in catalysis), with the work featured as the cover article of the issue. Jiangsu University (JSU) is the first affiliation, while Prof. Xia Jiexiang from JSU, Prof. She Yuanbin from Zhejiang University of Technology, and Prof. Molly Meng-Jung Li from Hong Kong Polytechnic University served as corresponding authors.

The direct photocatalytic conversion of CO2 into multi-carbon products (e.g., ethylene, C2H4) represents a cutting-edge and highly challenging frontier in global research, aligning with China’s national “Dual Carbon” strategy. A critical challenge lies in the precise regulation of CO2 adsorption/activation and the compatibility of active sites during C–C coupling. While single-atom catalysts (SACs) exhibit high atomic utilization efficiency, their limitations in enhancing C–C coupling efficiency remain unresolved. Conventional catalysts often feature randomly distributed active atomic pairs on surfaces, whose disordered arrangement severely hinders C–C coupling. Thus, strategically engineering catalysts with well-defined dual atomic pair structures is a promising pathway to achieving efficient CO2 photoreduction into multi-carbon chemicals like ethylene.
The study proposed a molecular aggregation-induced strategy to construct dual Pt atomic pairs. By aggregating Pt-TCPP metalloporphyrin on Bi3O4Br surfaces, the team successfully synthesized a Pt-TCPP/Bi3O4Br catalyst with equidistant dual Pt atom pairs, enabling direct photocatalytic CO2 conversion to C2H4. Experimental results demonstrated that the geometric advantages of the equidistant dual Pt pairs significantly facilitated C–C coupling. This work further suggests that organic molecule modifications could optimize the spatial arrangement of metal sites, opening avenues for tailored catalyst design.
This research provides theoretical and methodological insights into the precise engineering of catalytic active sites and advances the development of efficient CO2 photoreduction systems. The strategy holds potential for extension to other multielectron transfer catalytic processes, such as photocatalytic water splitting and nitrogen fixation.