Research progress of catalytic system and materials for electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to ethanol
Carbon dioxide electrocatalytic reduction(CO2RR)technology which converts CO2 into fuel and high value-added chemicals is one of the effective ways to alleviate the current resources,environment,and many other problems.Among numerous products of CO2RR,ethanol has a relatively high energy density and economic value.However,due to the complex elementary process,and it is affected by the mass transfer and by-product hydrogen evolution,the process of CO2RR-to-ethanol is often accompanied by a series of problems such as high potential,low reaction,and low selectivity.Therefore,the current design ideas of CO2RR to ethanol catalytic system and the research progress of catalytic materials by using the"tandem process"of system coupling,the"tandem reaction"of active site coupling,and the"synergy reaction"that highlights the"electronic effect","strain effect"and"confinement effect"were reviewed.It was proposed that"tandem catalysis"and"synergy catalysis"were the two main strategies for the design of electrocatalytic systems at present.It was also suggested that mechanism-based catalysts design was the key to improving the performance of CO2RR to ethanol pro-cess under different electrocatalytic strategies.