Recent Advances in Strategies for Improving the Performance of CO₂ Reduction Reaction on Single Atom Catalysts

Abstract

Excessive consumption of fossil fuels gives rise to the increasing emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and furthers the ecocrisis. Electrochemical CO2 reduction (ECR) has both functions of dwindling greenhouse gas concentration and converting it into valuable products. Due to the intrinsic chemical inertness of CO2 molecules, the study on efficient and low‐cost catalysts has attracted much attention. Recently isolated atoms, dispersed in stable support, play an important role in decreasing energy barriers of intermediate steps and obtaining target products with high activity and selectivity for ECR. The effective regulation of central atoms or coordination environment is significant to realize the desired performances of ECR with a high efficiency and selectivity. Hence, a comprehensive summary about strategies for improving the performance of ECR on single atom catalysts (SACs) is necessary. Herein, the SACs on various supports are introduced, the methods to design stable SACs are discussed, and the strategies for tuning the performance of ECR on SACs are summarized. The localized environment manipulation is widely used for high‐performance SACs design, including regulating central atoms and coordination environment. Finally, the perspectives are discussed to shed light on the rational design of intriguing SACs for ECR.

Atomically Dispersed s‐Block Magnesium Sites for Electroreduction of CO2 to CO

“…*CO), indicating the poor performance of Fe and Co-C 3 N 4 were mainly caused by the CO desorption step. [16] Thus, these electrochemical results demonstrate that Mg-C 3 N 4 has low energy barriers for the *COOH formation and the CO desorption, leading to an excellent performance, consistent with DFT calculations.…”

Tailoring Layer Number of 2D Porphyrin‐Based MOFs Towards Photocoupled Electroreduction of CO2

“…During the CO 2 reduction reaction (CO2RR), many elec trocatalysts change their structure as the applied potential increases, especially for singlesite catalysts. [61][62][63] The recon structed active sites are responsible for the observed catalytic performance. There are two types of electrocatalytically active sites in the monolayer and bilayer: the CuN 4 site and the CuO 4 site.…”

Origin of the N-coordinated single-atom Ni sites in heterogeneous electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction reaction

“…Good knowledge of the active structure of a catalyst is a solid foundation for understanding its catalytic nature. 33,34 It has been established that the local coordination environment of a single-atom metal site is essential for determining its catalytic performance. 35,36 We began by constructing the potential congurations of single-atom Ni sites and evaluating their formation energy values.…”