Synergistic Catalysis Induced by Zn‐Doping for Steering CO <sub>2</sub> Electroreduction Pathway Toward Ethanol on Cu Catalyst
Electrocatalytic CO<sub>2</sub> reduction reaction (CO<sub>2</sub>RR) offers a promising route for sustainable fuel production, yet, improving selectivity toward ethanol remains a great challenge. Here, we report a CuZn bimetallic catalyst with high-index step sites that achieves an ethanol Faradaic efficiency of 46% and stable operation for 100 h at a current density of ∼600 mA cm<sup>-</sup> <sup>2</sup>. Zn-doping does not only modulate the electronic structure of Cu, but also promotes the formation of high-index step sites. Thorough in situ spectroscopic characterizations and density functional theory calculations indicate that this dual effect enables asymmetric <sup>*</sup>CO adsorption in both bridge and atop configurations, thus facilitating C-C coupling and stabilizing the <sup>*</sup>CHCOH intermediate toward ethanol formation. Our findings highlight the synergistic role of electronic tuning and crystal facet engineering in developing efficient CO<sub>2</sub>RR catalysts with enhanced ethanol selectivity.
Authors
- Leijie Zhang
- Yipeng Zang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6572-0939)
- Yanwei Lum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7261-2098)
- Dunfeng Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2472-7349)
- Pengfei Ou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8261-7992)
- Yan Liu
Institutions
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research (SG)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (SG)
- IS Instruments (United Kingdom) (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2025-12-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202513647
- Primary Topic
- CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Research Foundation
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research
- National University of Singapore
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Liaoning Revitalization Talents Program
- Yulin University
- National Supercomputing Centre Singapore
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics
- Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy