Efficient CO Electroreduction to Methanol by CuRh Alloys with Isolated Rh Sites
Junbo Zhang, Peiping Yu, Peng Chen, Ximeng Lv, Zhengzheng Liu, Tao Cheng, Gengfeng Zheng
Abstract
Electrochemical carbon monoxide reduction reaction (CORR) is a potential route to produce high value-added products such as methanol but currently still suffers from low partial current densities. Herein, we developed a Rh 1 Cu 4 alloy with isolated Rh sites homogeneously distributed inside the Cu framework for the CO-to-methanol electrosynthesis. Density functional calculations revealed that these isolated Rh sites enabled enhanced *H coverage on the Rh 1 Cu 4 catalyst and were favorable for the hydrogenation of *CH 2 OH, which allowed for efficient electrocatalytic CORR toward methanol. The Rh 1 Cu 4 catalyst exhibited one of the highest CO-to-methanol partial current densities of 111.7 ± 12.8 mA·cm –2 and a Faradaic efficiency for methanol production as 46.2 ± 5.3%, corresponding to the methanol production rate of 0.29 μmol s –1 cm –2 . This work suggests exciting opportunities for further developing rational catalytic sites for high-performance CO electroreduction to value-added products.