Trogadas P, Xu L, Coppens M. From Biomimicking to Bioinspired Design of Electrocatalysts for CO
2 Reduction to C
1 Products.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 2024;
63:e202314446. [PMID:
37795670 PMCID:
PMC10962605 DOI:
10.1002/anie.202314446]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Revised: 10/03/2023] [Accepted: 10/04/2023] [Indexed: 10/06/2023]
Abstract
The electrochemical reduction of CO2 (CO2 RR) is a promising approach to maintain a carbon cycle balance and produce value-added chemicals. However, CO2 RR technology is far from mature, since the conventional CO2 RR electrocatalysts suffer from low activity (leading to currents <10 mA cm-2 in an H-cell), stability (<120 h), and selectivity. Hence, they cannot meet the requirements for commercial applications (>200 mA cm-2 , >8000 h, >90 % selectivity). Significant improvements are possible by taking inspiration from nature, considering biological organisms that efficiently catalyze the CO2 to various products. In this minireview, we present recent examples of enzyme-inspired and enzyme-mimicking CO2 RR electrocatalysts enabling the production of C1 products with high faradaic efficiency (FE). At present, these designs do not typically follow a methodical approach, but rather focus on isolated features of biological systems. To achieve disruptive change, we advocate a systematic design methodology that leverages fundamental mechanisms associated with desired properties in nature and adapts them to the context of engineering applications.
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