Lewis‐Acid Engineering with Neodymium Promoters as Synergistic Nd‐Ni Dual Sites for Enhanced Urea Oxidation

ABSTRACT The sluggish kinetics of the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) are strongly associated with the high energy barriers required for the C‐N cleavage and N‐N coupling steps. While nickel‐based catalysts are promising, their performance is limited by high operational potentials and structural instability. This work introduces neodymium (Nd) as a Lewis acid site promoter into a nickel‐based framework to create Nd‐Ni oxide catalysts. The strong Lewis acidity of Nd centers enhances urea adsorption and facilitates C‐N cleavage and N‐N coupling, while the significant electronegativity difference between Nd and Ni induces electronic redistribution for optimizing intermediate adsorption for UOR. As a result, the optimal catalyst demonstrates superior UOR performance, in which a low potential of 1.347 V is required to achieve 10 mA cm ⁻² accompanied by excellent cycling stability. When integrated into a Zn‐urea battery, it delivers a peak power density of 11.6 mW cm ⁻² . This study highlights the critical role of Lewis‐acid engineering via rare‐earth metal incorporation in restructuring reaction pathways, and offers a promising strategy for advancing renewable energy conversion.