单原子催化剂电催化还原二氧化碳研究进展

Research Prospect of Single Atom Catalysts Towards Electrocatalytic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide

电催化CO_(2)还原能够在常温常压下利用电能将CO_(2)转化为含碳清洁能源,具有很好的应用前景。但其应用仍受缓慢的阴极催化剂限制。众所周知,催化剂的尺寸对其活性有很大的影响,将金属催化剂减少到纳米颗粒级别,能够显著提升其暴露的活性位点数和本征活性,从而提升其催化性能。在这一思路下,如果将催化剂的尺寸降低到单原子分散级别,催化剂的活性能够得到明显提升。近几年,由于单原子分散催化剂具有特殊的微观几何结构和电子态,已经成为电催化还原CO_(2)领域的研究热点。在本综述中,对单原子分散催化剂在电催化还原CO_(2)方面的研究进行了总结和回顾,并对未来单原子分散催化剂在电催化还原CO_(2)领域的难点问题和进一步研究方向进行了分析和讨论。

Electrocatalytic reduction of CO_(2) can directly convert CO_(2) and water into carbonous products by renewable electric energy under ambient conditions,which has a promising application prospect.However,its application is still limited by the sluggish cathode reaction.It is well-known that the size of the catalyst has a great influence on its activity.Reducing the metal catalyst to nanoscale particles can significantly increase the number of exposed active sites and its intrinsic activity,thus improve its catalytic performance.Furthermore,when the size of the catalyst is reduced to the level of single atom dispersion,the activity of the catalyst can be significantly improved.In recent years,single atom catalysts have become research hotspot in the field of electrocatalytic CO_(2) reduction owing to their unique geometrical structures and electrical states.In this review,we summarize and review the research on the single atom catalysts towards electrocatalytic reduction of CO_(2),and also analyze and discuss the difficulties and further research directions in the future.