Defect chemistry of electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction

Abstract

Electrocatalytic CO2 reduction is a promising strategy for converting the greenhouse gas CO2 into high value-added products and achieving carbon neutrality. The rational design of electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction is of great significance. Defect chemistry is an important category for enhancing the intrinsic catalytic performance of electrocatalysts. Defect engineering breaks the catalytic inertia inherent in perfect structures by imparting unique electronic structures and physicochemical properties to electrocatalysts, thereby improving catalytic activity. Recently, various defective nanomaterials have been studied and show great potential in electrocatalytic CO2 reduction. There is an urgent need to gain insight into the effect of defects on catalytic performance. Here, we summarized the recent research advances on the design of various types of defects, including carbon-based materials (intrinsic defects, heteroatom doping and single-metal-atom sites) and metal compounds (vacancies, grain boundaries, and lattice defects). The major challenges and prospects of defect chemistry in electrocatalytic CO2 reduction are also proposed. This review is expected to be instructive in the development of defect engineering for CO2 reduction catalysts.

Improvement of magnetite adsorption performance for Pb (II) by introducing defects

“…Its surface defects are widely regarded as the active site of the reaction process (Gorski et al, 2010;Li et al, 2014;Lesiak et al, 2019). Much adsorptive behavior between contaminant and adsorbent is strongly affected by surface defects (such as point defects and step edges) of the adsorbent (Li et al, 2015;Yong et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022). Although calcination will cause aggregation of some materials, this phenomenon usually occurs on nanoparticles (there are interactions between nanoparticles) (Ding et al, 2009), it can still be used to introduce defects in micron-scale materials to improve the reaction activity in this paper and avoid aggregation reaction.…”

Electroreduction of CO2 to syngas with controllable H2/CO ratios in a wide potential range over Ni–N co-doped ultrathin carbon nanosheets

“…3,4 Of the above technologies, the electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) has been regarded as a promising strategy for producing fuels and chemicals from renewable energy sources. 5 In recent years, considerable advances have been made in the CO 2 RR, in which the reduction of CO 2 to low-carbon hydrocarbons is an intermediate step in the further production of high-value-added products. 6,7 Among them, syngas (H 2 and CO) is key feedstock for many important chemicals; for example, when the ratio of H 2 /CO is 2/1, it is an ideal choice for methanol production while the optimal ratio for dimethyl ether production is 1/1.…”

Editorial: Defect chemistry in electrocatalysis

“…Oxygen vacancies engineering in electrocatalysts for nitrogen reduction reaction was summarized by (Zhu et al, 2022) They focused on the methods to generate oxygen vacancies and their effects on electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction. (Li et al, 2022a) briefly summarized recent research progress in defect engineering of electrocatalysts for electrochemical CO 2 reduction. They summarized various strategies for adjusting and modifying the surface defects of catalysts, including intrinsic defects, heteroatom doping, singlemetal-atom sites, vacancies, grain boundaries and lattice defects.…”