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Recent progress and perspective of electrochemical CO2 reduction towards C2-C5 products over non-precious metal heterogeneous electrocatalysts

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Abstract

Electroreduction of carbon dioxide (CO2ER) into value-added chemical compounds has presented as a promising route for renewable carbon cycle, which alleviates global warming concern. Compared with traditional C1 products, high-value multicarbon products converted from atmospheric CO2 via CO2ER have attracted dramatic interest due to their significant economic efficiency, however desired catalytic selectivity of multicarbon products is difficult to achieve because of the high thermodynamic barriers and complex reaction pathways. To replace currently used precious-metal based catalysts, developing highly efficient and precious-metal-free CO2ER catalysts based on earth abundant elements is the top priority to meet the requirements of industrialization. Although certain progress has been made, there are still few systematic reports on the non-precious metal heterogeneous (NPMH) CO2ER electrocatalysts for efficient conversion of CO2 to multicarbon products. Herein, we summarize the latest research advances in recent developments of NPMH electrocatalysts, including nanostructured Cu, Cu-based bimetallic catalysts, Cu-based complexes, and carbon-based Cu-free catalysts for electroreduction of CO2 into high-value multicarbon products. The corresponding CO2ER performances are discussed in the order of the types of multicarbon products, specifically for ethanol (C2H5OH), ethylene (C2H4), ethane (C2H6), acetic acid (CH3COOH), propanol (C3H7OH), and other C2+ products with a special attention paid to understand the structure—activity relationship. Moreover, key strategies and characterization techniques for catalytic mechanism insights, and unsolved issues and future trends for enhancing the CO2ER performance of NPMH electrocatalysts are highlighted, which provides a constructive guidance on the development of CO2ER electrocatalysts with high activity and selectivity for multicarbon products.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially support from by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21922811, 21878270, and 21961160742), the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. LR19B060002), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2020XZZX00209), Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Protective Technologies (No. 2020K10), Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, CAS, the Startup Foundation for Hundred-Talent Program of Zhejiang University, and the Leading Innovative and Entrepreneur Team Introduction Program of Zhejiang (No. 2019R01006) to Y. H.

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  1. Jiayi Chen and Tingting Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Jiayi Chen, Tingting Wang, Zhongjian Li, Bin Yang, Qinghua Zhang, Lecheng Lei & Yang Hou

  2. Institute of Zhejiang University - Quzhou, Quzhou, 324000, China

    Bin Yang, Lecheng Lei & Yang Hou

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Riverside, California, 92521, USA

    Pingyun Feng

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  1. Jiayi Chen
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Chen, J., Wang, T., Li, Z. et al. Recent progress and perspective of electrochemical CO2 reduction towards C2-C5 products over non-precious metal heterogeneous electrocatalysts. Nano Res. 14, 3188–3207 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3335-x

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