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.