Toward Sustainable Electrochemical CO 2 Valorization

With the continuous accumulation of the atmospheric CO 2 level and the substantial cost reduction of renewable electricity generation in the past decade, electrocatalytic CO 2 reduction under ambient conditions has been attracting significant research interest worldwide, as it presents potentials of both reducing carbon footprints and producing value-added products. Although many scientific breakthroughs have been reported to contribute to this field, most of those discoveries are still based on laboratory-scale studies, while the implementation of this technology into scalable industrial deployment remains hindered and highly challenging. This Perspective briefly discusses several key challenges in the full electrocatalytic CO 2 reduction system, including CO 2 capture and direct utilization, catalysts with high stability, surface/interface functionalization, ion-exchange membranes, and electrolytes, which are strongly correlated to the potentials toward sustainable electrochemical CO 2 valorization. Furthermore, several important research directions are also proposed, such as developing new catalysts and mechanisms, unconventional reaction conditions, coupling of CO 2 electroreduction with other reactants, and tandem catalytic reactions.