A bioinspired metal-organic helicate drives electrocatalytic ethane production from carbon dioxide.

We designed the metal-organic cage electrocatalyst H1, which activates the in situ-formed adduct between CO2 and piperazine via host-guest encapsulation, thereby significantly lowering the CO2 reduction potential and achieving the lowest potential for CO2 to ethane conversion of -0.13 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). The catalytic system delivers a faradaic efficiency (FE) of 36.8% for C2H6 while maintaining stable performance over 20 hours of continuous operation.