CO2 Electrocatalytic Conversion: Outlooks, Pitfalls and Scientific Gaps

CO2RR electrocatalysis is a key technology/process for transformative (industrial) chemical production but requires accelerating the development of novel materials and approaches by turning the current design strategies. This contribution does not review this topic but instead highlights pitfalls and scientific gaps in the current approaches. The discussion is focused on electrode/reactor engineering and related aspects, including how to control the nanoffenvironment at the electrocatalyst surface. Their better understanding, especially the development of reliable modelling able to account for the complexity of the phenomena present in electrocatalysis, is the condition to accelerate the progress. It is also remarked that the mechanistic and design strategies used have an intrinsic methodological issue. Approaching catalysis from the perspective of selectively transferring energy for the activation barriers rather than only considering the nature of the active sites and the energetic pathways of transformation (the current approach) is discussed. The concept is related to the role of localised phonons, polarons and interaction with excitons in determining the CO2 electrocatalytic conversion pathways.