The growing threat of global climate change has received
increasing attention in recent years. The conversion of CO2 to fuels and chemicals is vital for reducing emissions of greenhouse
gases and neutralizing the negative impacts of CO2 emissions
on the environment. Various CO2 conversion routes have
been proposed on the basis of heterogeneous catalysis. However, the
development of a high-performance catalyst with satisfactory activity
and selectivity remains challenging. In past decades, the role of
ceria in activating CO2 under mild conditions has been
widely demonstrated, which has inspired the design of novel heterogeneous
catalysts and contributed to the extensive catalytic applications
in CO2 conversion reactions. The applications of ceria
have been studied in three groups of CO2 conversion reactions,
including hydrogenation of CO2, activation of CO2 with alkanes, and nonreductive CO2 transformations. Investigations
into these reactions show that CeO2 is a highly tunable
material with great potential for CO2 catalysis due to
its unique properties such as abundant oxygen vacancy and metal–support
interaction. The catalytic performance of CeO2-based catalysts
can be improved by various strategies including metal doping, forming
mixed oxides or solid solution, as well as morphological control.
Future works are proposed to address the challenges in current research
and to further advance the CeO2-based catalysts in CO2 conversion reactions.