Catalyst Design for Electrolytic CO2 Reduction Toward Low-Carbon Fuels and Chemicals

Yipeng Zang; Pengfei Wei; Hefei Li; Dunfeng Gao; Guoxiong Wang

doi:10.1007/s41918-022-00140-y

Electrochemical Energy Reviews ›› 2022, Vol. 5 ›› Issue (Suppl 1) DOI: 10.1007/s41918-022-00140-y

Review Article

Catalyst Design for Electrolytic CO₂ Reduction Toward Low-Carbon Fuels and Chemicals

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¹State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 116023, Dalian, Liaoning, China

²University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China

^d dfgao@dicp.ac.cn

^e wanggx@dicp.ac.cn

Yipeng Zang

received his Ph. D degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2020, and then he moved to the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as a postdoctoral researcher. His research interests are design and synthesis of electrochemical energy conversion materials and their applications in CO₂RR, HER and OER.

Pengfei Wei

obtained his B.S. degree from Changzhou University in 2016 and his Master degree at DICP, CAS in 2019. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate under supervision of Prof. Guoxiong Wang at DICP, CAS. His research interests focus on design and synthesis of anion exchange membranes and catalysts for CO₂RR.

Hefei Li

received her B.S. degree from Central China Normal University in 2017. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Prof. Guoxiong Wang at DICP, CAS. Her research interests focus on CO₂ electroreduction to multicarbon products.

Dunfeng Gao

received his B.S. degree from China University of Petroleum in 2009 and Ph.D. degree from the DICP, CAS in 2015. After his postdoctoral research at the Ruhr University Bochum and the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Germany (2015–2019), he moved back to DICP as an associate professor in 2019 and was promoted to a full professor in 2021. His research focuses on electrocatalytic reactions and catalytic materials.

Guoxiong Wang

received his B.S. degree from Wuhan University in 2000 and Ph.D. degree from DICP, CAS in 2006. After working at the Catalysis Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan from 2007 to 2010 as a postdoctoral researcher, he joined the State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, DICP as an associate professor and was promoted as a full professor in 2015. His research interests include highly efficient catalytic materials and processes for electrochemical energy conversion and storage.

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Abstract

Electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) is an attractive way to simultaneously convert CO₂ into value-added fuels and chemicals as well as to store intermittent electricity derived from renewable energy. However, this process involves multiple proton and electron transfer steps and is kinetically sluggish, thus leading to low conversion efficiency from electrical energy to chemical energy. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop highly efficient CO₂RR catalysts with high activity, selectivity and stability. In this review, we firstly introduce the fundamentals of CO₂RR and then discuss the synthesis, characterization, catalytic performance and reaction mechanism of various catalysts based on specific CO₂RR products. The structure-performance relationships of some representative catalyst systems are highlighted, benefiting from advanced electrochemical in situ and operando spectroscopic characterizations. At the end, we illustrate existing challenges and emerging research directions, to design new generation of highly efficient catalysts and to advance both fundamental research and practical application of CO₂RR to low-carbon fuels and chemicals.

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Yipeng Zang, Pengfei Wei, Hefei Li, Dunfeng Gao, Guoxiong Wang. Catalyst Design for Electrolytic CO₂ Reduction Toward Low-Carbon Fuels and Chemicals. Electrochemical Energy Reviews, 2022, 5(Suppl 1): DOI:10.1007/s41918-022-00140-y