Enhanced CO₂ reduction to multi-carbon products on CuLa bimetallic catalyst

Abstract

Electrochemical CO₂ reduction (CO₂R) powered with renewable electricity has been considered as a promising approach for carbon emission mitigation and sustainable production of value-added chemicals. Developing active and selective electrocatalysts capable of achieving high multi-carbon product selectivity at low overpotentials remains a critical challenge. In this work, we develop a lanthanum (La) doping strategy to optimize Cu-based catalysts for enhanced CO₂R performance. As a result, the optimized La-modified CuO catalyst achieves a remarkable Faradaic efficiency of over 75% toward multi-carbon products at a modest potential of approximately −0.5 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, achieving a practical relevant current density of over 200 mA cm⁻². This high selectivity represents a twofold enhancement over state-of-the-art CuO-based catalysts under identical conditions. Detailed kinetic assessments and mechanistic investigations reveal that La incorporation enhance *CO binding strength on Cu and facilitate CO—CO dimerization, thereby facilitating the production of multi-carbon products. Overall, this work establishes an effective approach for boosting multi-carbon production through strategic rare-earth element modification, thereby advancing the development of efficient CO₂R systems for sustainable chemical synthesis.

Keywords

catalysts design / electrochemical CO₂ reduction / multi-carbon products

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