Facet-Defined Dilute Metal Alloy Nanorods for Efficient Electroreduction of CO to -Propanol.

Electroreduction of CO into liquid fuels is a compelling strategy for storing intermittent renewable energy. Here, we introduce a family of facet-defined dilute copper alloy nanocrystals as catalysts to improve the electrosynthesis of -propanol from CO and HO. We show that substituting a dilute amount of weak-CO-binding metals into the Cu(100) surface improves CO-to--propanol activity and selectivity by modifying the electronic structure of catalysts to facilitate C-C coupling while preserving the (100)-like 4-fold Cu ensembles which favor C-C coupling. With the AuCu champion catalyst, we achieve an -propanol Faradaic efficiency of 18.2 ± 0.3% at a low potential of -0.41 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode and a peak production rate of 16.6 mA·cm. This study demonstrates that shape-controlled dilute-metal-alloy nanocrystals represent a new frontier in electrocatalyst design, and precise control of the host and minority metal distributions is crucial for elucidating structure-composition-property relationships and attaining superior catalytic performance.