Toward Sustainable Electrochemical CO ₂ Valorization

With the continuous accumulation of the atmospheric CO2 level and the substantial cost reduction of renewable electricity generation in the past decade, electrocatalytic CO2 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 CO2 reduction system, including CO2 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 CO2 valorization. Furthermore, several important research directions are also proposed, such as developing new catalysts and mechanisms, unconventional reaction conditions, coupling of CO2 electroreduction with other reactants, and tandem catalytic reactions.