Defining a Materials Database for the Design of Copper Binary Alloy Catalysts for Electrochemical CO2 Conversion

Abstract While Cu electrodes are a versatile material in the electrochemical production of desired hydrocarbon fuels, Cu binary alloy electrodes are recently proposed to further tune reaction directionality and, more importantly, overcome the intrinsic limitation of scaling relations. Despite encouraging empirical demonstrations of various Cu‐based metal alloy systems, the underlying principles of their outstanding performance are not fully addressed. In particular, possible phase segregation with concurrent composition changes, which is widely observed in the field of metallurgy, is not at all considered. Moreover, surface‐exposed metals can easily form oxide species, which is another pivotal factor that determines overall catalytic properties. Here, the understanding of Cu binary alloy catalysts for CO2 reduction and recent progress in this field are discussed. From the viewpoint of th…