Advances in Thermo-, Photo-, and Electrocatalytic Continuous Conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Liquid Chemicals

The enormous research activity on the capture and conversion of CO2 into useful entities is the manifestation of scientific concerns over climate change due to increased accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Although several thermo-, photo-, and electrocatalytic methods have been developed to convert CO2 into various important chemicals including fuels, most of them have not been successfully implemented at the industrial level. The one of the apparent reasons is the thermodynamic stability of CO2 that restricts their deployment at industrial scale because of the limitations associated with the strategy of amplifying batch reactors. Flow chemistry is an effective tool not only to develop continuous processes but also to intensify existing ones; implementation of flow processes at the commercial level is more desirable than that of batch processes. Thus, the application of flow chemistry in the CO2 conversion domain has paved the way to develop continuous methodology and, not surprisingly, has garnered tremendous attention recently. Herein, the recent progress in continuous flow conversion of CO2 into liquid chemicals via thermo-, photo-, and electrocatalytic processes is discussed including the importance of catalyst development, flow reaction parameters, and the type of flow reactors for developing a productive continuous flow process; existing challenges and future perspectives on flow chemistry for CO2 conversion are highlighted.