Developing highly efficient catalysts for the electrochemical
CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to valuable chemicals
through a multi-electron reaction pathway remains a challenge, which
usually faces the drawbacks of high overpotential and low selectivity.
Here, we designed 1T′-MoSe2, -WS2, and
-WSe2 (denoted as TM@MX2) catalysts doped with
75 kinds of transition metal (Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn,
Zr, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Hf, Ta, W, Re, Os, Ir, Pt, and Au) and
investigated their CO2RR activity via first-principles
screening. In our screening strategy, the stability, CO2 adsorption, activity, and selectivity were adopted for the indicators.
Among the considered candidates, Ru@WS2 was selected as
the optimal catalyst for deep CO2 reduction to methane
with the limiting potential of −0.47 V. Particularly, we found
that the introductions of transition metals generate completely different
products from pristine VIB transition metal dichalcogenides during
CO2RR. In addition, most TM@MX2 catalysts favor
to form HCOOH whereas Ru@WS2, Mn@WS2, Cr@WS2, and Au@WSe2 prefer to generate CH4 as the final product. The present work will promote the explorations
of VIB transition metal dichalcogenides in the area of reducing CO2 to CH4.