An important building block in achieving climate targets is to develop technologies that can produce synthetic fuels and chemical feedstocks from CO2 using electricity from renewable sources. In the electrochemical conversion of CO2, defect structures on catalyst surfaces are believed to have a significant impact on selectivity. Researchers at Kiel University (CAU) and the Department of Interface Science at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society have now shown that atomic rearrangements occur even in the early stages of the reaction.