Progress in development of electrocatalyst for CO₂ conversion to selective CO production

Abstract

The conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) to valuable fuels and chemicals offers a new pathway for sustainable and clean carbon fixation. Recently, the focus has been on electrochemical CO2 reduction on heterogeneous electrode catalysts, leading to remarkable achievements in the reaction performance. To date, CO2 to carbon monoxide (CO) conversion is considered as the most promising candidate reaction for the industrial market, owing to its high efficiency and reasonable technoeconomic feasibility. Moreover, CO has been proposed as a key intermediate species for further reduced hydrocarbons, which can pave the way for various fuel production. This study sets out to describe recent progress on the electrochemical CO2 reduction to CO in a heterogeneously catalyzed system. The review includes understanding of the catalytic material employed and engineering strategies implemented by adjusting the binding energy of key adsorbates. These material design approaches, such as nanostructuring, alloying, doping, and so forth, have pioneered breakouts in the intrinsic catalytic nature of transition metal elements. Moreover, recent advances in systematic design are summarized, with focus on practical industrial applications. Finally, perspectives on the design of electrocatalyst materials for CO production by electrochemical CO2 reduction are presented.

Recent Progress of Vacancy Engineering for Electrochemical Energy Conversion Related Applications

“…[ 102,194 ] However, HER relative to CO 2 RR is typically more favorable, limiting the efficient formation of desired products. [ 195 ] To address the above problems, it is important to design effective, selective, and robust electrocatalysts to capture CO 2 molecules and effectively activate stable CO bonds.…”

Recent Advances in TiO2-Based Photocatalysts for Reduction of CO2 to Fuels

“…Lately, the electroreduction of CO 2 and photoreduction strategies have been paid increasing attention to as promising procedures to utilize CO 2 as a carbon building-block for synthesizing hydrocarbon fuels [9][10][11]. Electroreduction of CO 2 requires electricity as the driving force for the electrochemical reaction [12][13][14][15].…”

Transition Metal Dichalcogenides for the Application of Pollution Reduction: A Review

“…Throughout all these methods, CO 2 molecules are not solely can be removed from the atmosphere but also can be converted into value-added chemicals such as methanol, formic acid, methane, and syngas [ 238 , 239 , 240 ]. Recently, electrochemical conversion of CO 2 to value-added chemicals through the principal of CO 2 electrochemical reduction reaction (CO 2 ERR) as shown in Figure 10 a [ 241 ], has emerged as a comparative alternative to its counterparts such as biochemical and thermochemical technologies [ 242 , 243 , 244 ]. Alternatively, semiconductor-based photocatalysis of CO 2 reduction has been another frontier in CO 2 conversion [ 245 ].…”

“… ( a ) Scheme of the electrochemical conversion of CO 2 into value-added chemicals (Reproduced with permission from [ 241 ]. Copyright 2019 CC BY-NC 4.0 John Wiley and Son) and ( b ) general working principle of photocatalyst for CO 2 conversion (Reproduced with permission from [ 249 ].…”