Abstract
Increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is believed to have a profound impact on the global climate. To reverse the impact would necessitate not only curbing the reliance on fossil fuels but also developing effective strategies capture and utilize CO2 from the atmosphere. Among several available strategies, CO2 reduction via the electrochemical or photochemical approach is particularly attractive since the required energy input can be potentially supplied from renewable sources such as solar energy. In this Review, an overview on these two different but inherently connected approaches is provided and recent progress on the development, engineering, and understanding of CO2 reduction electrocatalysts and photocatalysts is summarized. First, the basic principles that govern electrocatalytic or photocatalytic CO2 reduction and their important performance metrics are discussed. Then, a detailed discussion on different CO2 reduction electrocatalysts and photocatalysts as well as their generally designing strategies is provided. At the end of this Review, perspectives on the opportunities and possible directions for future development of this field are presented.
Highlights
Increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is believed to have a proreduce the atmospheric CO2 level and further utilize it has become an imporfound impact on the global climate
This review summarizes recent advances in CO2 reduction to useful chemical fuels via the electrochemical or photochemical approach
Even though some significant advances have been achieved in the past decades for both electrocatalytic and photocatalytic CO2 reduction, their reaction activity and selectivity are still rather low
Summary
CO2 is one of the most stable molecules due to the strong C O double bond with bonding energy of 750 kJ mol−1—considerably larger than that of C C (336 kJ mol−1), C O (327 kJ mol−1), or C H bond (411 kJ mol−1). CO2 reduction via either the electrocatalytic or the photocatalytic approach is a thermodynamically uphill reaction and demands significant energy input to break the C O bond. To make it even more complicated, CO2 reduction may proceed via several different reaction pathways with the transfer of 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 or even more electrons and yielding diverse reduction products including carbon monoxide (CO), formic acid (HCOOH), methane (CH4), ethylene (C2H4), and many others depending on the nature of the electrocatalysts or photocatalysts as well as the actual experimental conditions.[27,28] As a result, electrocatalytic or photocatalytic CO2 reduction is generally suffered from very limited efficiency and poor selectivity
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