Recent strategies for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 into methanol

Excessive CO2 emission caused by the overuse of fossil fuels and other industrial activities have threatened toward climate change. In order to avoid further CO2 accumulation, converting atmospheric CO2 into value-added products is the viable solution. In this respect, electrochemical conversion of CO2 is the most attractive way due to the fact that it can be powered by environmentally friendly energies, conducted under mild reaction conditions, and is an easy to scale-up process. However, introducing selectivity could be one of the major issues in this procedure and to improve the selectivity, an effective, durable, and sustainable catalyst is highly desired. It should be also mentioned that among all the reduced products from CO2, methanol contains a high energy density; such that it can be directly applied to fuel cells and in other industries. Considering all these, in this chapter, we summarized the specific advances in the electrochemical reduction of CO2 into methanol developed in the last 10 years. The fundamental insights are suggested for each kind of catalyst, which provides the guideline for the design and synthesis of novel catalysts. Finally, the perspectives and conclusions are presented for future explorations in this direction.