Sustainable materials for CO2 photo/electrocatalytic valorization

In recent years, the negative impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on our planet’s climate has motivated a progressive transition from a global energy scenario heavily reliant on fossil fuels to one based on environmentally benign, renewable energy sources. However, while the long-term solution is abandoning fossil fuels for renewable sources, it has been shown that in the short-to-medium term conventional fuels will still be used and CO2 emissions will have to be compensated for. In this scenario, one of the most interesting and challenging strategies to mitigate the disastrous effect of carbon dioxide on earth’s climate, is to consider CO2 as valuable raw material to obtain value-added fuels and chemicals through its photo/electrochemical reduction (CO2RR). The key challenge for this application is to develop highly selective, stable, efficient, environmental-friendly and inexpensive photo/electrocatalysts. Among the possible candidates, nobel metal-free catalysts such as transition metal, transition metal oxides, 2D and carbon-based materials will be proposed.