The thermocatalytic conversion of CO 2 into high-value chemicals such as methanol offers a promising route to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, driving the need for highly efficient and stable catalysts. In this work, we overcome the typical activity–selectivity trade-off in methanol synthesis by incorporating La into a Cu-based catalytic system. Detailed characterization shows that La doping induces electron enrichment of ZnO X even before reduction, which suppresses electron transfer from Cu to ZnO X during reduction and thereby increases the proportion of active Cu 0 sites for CO 2 hydrogenation. Through combined spectroscopic analysis and DFT calculations, we propose a dual-site mechanism involving Cu 0 -ZnO X and Cu 0 -La 2 (CO 3 ) 3 interfaces, where the migration of HCOO* between these sites is key to enhancing both catalytic activity and selectivity. The optimized La-modified catalyst achieves 63.23% CO 2 conversion and 85.32% methanol selectivity. This work demonstrates a rational strategy for designing high-performance CO 2 -to-methanol catalysts via electronic modulation and interface engineering. • Introduction of La enhanced Cu dispersion and modulates electronic structure. • Introduction of La inhibited electron transfer from Cu to ZnO during reduction. • Introduction of La strengthened Cu Zn interaction and introduced new Cu La synergy. • Cu 0 -ZnO X and Cu 0 -La 2 (CO 3 ) 3 dual-site strategies was proposed. • Introduction of La boosted both activity and selectivity of the Cu-based catalyst.
Wang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.