Asymmetric CO–CHO Coupling over Pr Single-Atom Alloy Enables Industrial-Level Electrosynthesis of Ethylene

The electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) to ethylene (C2H4) holds great promise for sustainable chemical synthesis, yet achieving industrially relevant production rates remains a significant challenge. Through computational screening, we have identified a praseodymium (Pr) single-atom alloy embedded in a copper (Cu) catalyst (Pr@Cu) that exhibits superior CO2 activation and a remarkably low energy barrier for asymmetric *CO–*CHO coupling, primarily by facilitating the *CHO intermediate formation. Our optimized catalyst, Pr@Cu-2 (6 wt % Pr), achieves a C2H4 Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 64.2% at −1.6 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) under a high current density of 1200 mA cm–2 in the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). Furthermore, when integrated into a 100 cm2 membrane electrode assembly (MEA) electrolyzer, Pr@Cu-2 demonstrates robust performance, maintaining a continuous C2H4 production rate of 21.3 mL min–1 at 20 A for over 200 h. This work provides fundamental insights into the role of Pr single-atom alloys in the CO2RR and highlights their potential for scalable C2H4 electrosynthesis.