Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (6): 1417-1432.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(21)63980-3

• Review • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Structural and interfacial engineering of well-defined metal-organic ensembles for electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction

Fenglei Lyua,b,c,, Wei Huaa,b,c,, Huirong Wua,b,c, Hao Suna,b,c, Zhao Denga,b,c, Yang Penga,b,c,*()   

  1. aSoochow Institute for Energy and Material Innovations, College of Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, Jiangsu, China
    bKey Laboratory for Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, Jiangsu, China
    cSoochow Municipal Laboratory for Low Carbon Technologies and Industries, Suzhou 215006, Jiangsu, China
  • Received:2021-09-16 Accepted:2021-09-16 Online:2022-06-18 Published:2022-04-14
  • Contact: Yang Peng
  • About author:First author contact:

    Contributed equally to this work.

  • Supported by:
    National Key R&D Program of China(2020YFB1505703);National Natural Science Foundation of China(22072101);National Natural Science Foundation of China(22075193);Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province(BK20211306);Key Technology Initiative of Suzhou Municipal Science and Technology Bureau(SYG201934);Six Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province(TD-XCL-006);Priority Academic Program Development (PAPD) of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions

Abstract:

Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction (CO2RR) has been generally regarded as green technologies that can convert renewable energy such as sunlight and wind into fuels and valuable chemicals. However, the large-scale implementation of CO2RR is severely hindered by the lack of high-performance CO2RR electrocatalysts. Heterogeneous molecular catalysts and metal-organic framework with well-defined structure and high tunability of the metal centers and ligands show great promise for CO2RR in terms of both fundamental understanding and practical application. Here, structural and interfacial engineering of these well-defined metal-organic ensembles is summarized. This review starts from the fundamental electrochemistry of CO2RR and its evaluation criteria, and then moves to the heterogeneous molecular catalysts and metal-organic framework with emphasis on the engineering of metal centers and ligands, their interaction with supports, as well as in situ reconstruction of metal-organic ensembles. Summary and outlook are present in the end, with the hope to inspire and provoke more genuine thinking on the design and fabrication of efficient CO2RR electrocatalysts.

Key words: Carbon dioxide reduction, Electrocatalysis, Heterogeneous molecular catalyst, Metal-organic frameworks, In situ reconstruction