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.