Nanocatalysts in electrosynthesis

Honghong Lin; Kecheng Wei; Zhouyang Yin; Shouheng Sun

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102172

Nanocatalysts in electrosynthesis

iScience. 2021 Feb 12;24(3):102172. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102172. eCollection 2021 Mar 19.

Authors

Honghong Lin¹, Kecheng Wei¹, Zhouyang Yin¹, Shouheng Sun¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.

Abstract

Electrosynthesis is to use electricity to drive chemical reactions for chemical synthesis and is potentially a green approach to fuel and energy sustainability. Nanostructured catalysts play an important role in promoting electrochemical reactions under green chemistry conditions. This perspective first provides a brief tutorial on electrosynthesis and the roles the nanocatalysts play in the synthesis. It then outlines the common strategies used to develop nanocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction, CO₂ reduction reaction, and biomass upgrading. The perspective further summarizes the current methodologies that have been developed for scaling-up synthesis of nanocatalysts, which will be essential for the electrosynthesis to become a viable industry approach.

Keywords: catalysis; chemical synthesis; nanoelectrochemistry; nanostructure.

Publication types

Review