Efficient CO Electroreduction to Methanol by CuRh Alloys with Isolated Rh Sites

Electrochemical carbon monoxide reduction reaction (CORR)is apotential route to produce high value-added products such as methanolbut currently still suffers from low partial current densities. Herein,we developed a Rh1Cu4 alloy with isolated Rhsites homogeneously distributed inside the Cu framework for the CO-to-methanolelectrosynthesis. Density functional calculations revealed that theseisolated Rh sites enabled enhanced *H coverage on the Rh1Cu4 catalyst and were favorable for the hydrogenationof *CH2OH, which allowed for efficient electrocatalyticCORR toward methanol. The Rh1Cu4 catalyst exhibitedone of the highest CO-to-methanol partial current densities of 111.7 +/- 12.8 mA center dot cm(-2) and a Faradaic efficiencyfor methanol production as 46.2 +/- 5.3%, corresponding to themethanol production rate of 0.29 mu mol s(-1) cm(-2). This work suggests exciting opportunities for furtherdeveloping rational catalytic sites for high-performance CO electroreductionto value-added products.