Figure denotes the urea FE and urea CD for different catalysts. Bi and Re do not show any activity for urea. Pt and Ir show minimal activity for urea synthesis. Pt, Ir, and Re are good hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts. The activity of Pt towards HER is significantly suppressed in the presence of nitrates. For Re and Ir, the suppression of HER activity is less in comparison with Pt. Catalysts that exhibit good activity for electrochemical NO3 -reduction to NH3 such as Fe, Ni, and Pd show very less activity for urea. NH3 is observed in significant amounts for these catalysts. Co is the best catalyst for electrochemical NO3 -reduction to NH3 20 and it is also active for electrochemical CO2 reduction to CO and HCOOH. Co shows a good urea CD (~-5mA/cm 2 ) but the urea FE is less (~30%) and NH3 is the dominant product when Co is used. Cu that is active for both electrochemical CO2 reduction and electrochemical NO3 -reduction to NH3 shows good activity for urea with 70 % urea FE, but the urea current density (~-4 mA/cm 2 ) is lesser than that of Co. In, Zn, and Sn are active for electrochemical CO2 reduction to HCOOH and CO, and they show higher urea FEs (>80 % for In and Sn, and >60 % for Zn). Ag and Au (prominent catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction to CO) show enhanced activities for urea synthesis with >95 % urea FEs, and Ag exhibits the highest urea current density (~-8 mA/cm 2 ) and ~100 % urea FE. Pb, which is the most active catalyst for electrochemical CO2 to HCOOH, shows no activity towards urea. We hypothesize that the reaction intermediates for CO formation are also key intermediates for urea synthesis. Also, Pb does not show activity toward electrochemical CO formation, and this strengthens our hypothesis. We believe that the catalysts such as In, Sn, and Zn, which show good activity towards urea, have a completely different mechanism in comparison to Ag and Au as the former reduces CO2 to HCOOH while the latter reduces CO2 to CO. From the above study, we observe that Ag exhibits the highest urea FE and urea CD, and hence Ag is chosen for further evaluations to improve the catalytic activity and understand the urea formation mechanism. Understanding the mechanism of urea formation on catalysts that reduce CO2 to HCOOH is beyond the scope of this study and is a potential future work.