Electrocatalytic Alloys for CO2 Reduction

Electrochemically reducing CO2 using renewable energy is a contemporary global challenge that will only be met with electrocatalysts capable of efficiently converting CO2 into fuels and chemicals with high selectivity. Although many different metals and morphologies have been tested for CO2 electrocatalysis over the last several decades, relatively limited attention has been committed to the study of alloys for this application. Alloying is a promising method to tailor the geometric and electric environments of active sites. The parameter space for discovering new alloys for CO2 electrocatalysis is particularly large because of the myriad products that can be formed during CO2 reduction. In this Minireview, mixed-metal electrocatalyst compositions that have been evaluated for CO2 reduction are summarized. A distillation of the structure-property relationships gleaned from this survey are intended to help in the construction of guidelines for discovering new classes of alloys for the CO2 reduction reaction.