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

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 Rh1Cu4 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 Rh1Cu4 catalyst and were favorable for the hydrogenation of *CH2OH, which allowed for efficient electrocatalytic CORR toward methanol. The Rh1Cu4 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.