Regulation Strategy of Nanostructured Engineering on Indium-Based Materials for Electrocatalytic Conversion of CO₂

Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction (CO₂ RR), as an emerging technology, can combine with sustainable energies to convert CO₂ into high value-added products, providing an effective pathway to realize carbon neutrality. However, the high activation energy of CO₂ , low mass transfer, and competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) leads to the unsatisfied catalytic activity. Recently, Indium (In)-based materials have attracted significant attention in CO₂ RR and a series of regulation strategies of nanostructured engineering are exploited to rationally design various advanced In-based electrocatalysts, which forces the necessary of a comprehensive and fundamental summary, but there is still a scarcity. Herein, this review provides a systematic discussion of the nanostructure engineering of In-based materials for the efficient electrocatalytic conversion of CO₂ to fuels. These efficient regulation strategies including morphology, size, composition, defects, surface modification, interfacial structure, alloying, and single-atom structure, are summarized for exploring the internal relationship between the CO₂ RR performance and the physicochemical properties of In-based catalysts. The correlation of electronic structure and adsorption behavior of reaction intermediates are highlighted to gain in-depth understanding of catalytic reaction kinetics for CO₂ RR. Moreover, the challenges and opportunities of In-based materials are proposed, which is expected to inspire the development of other effective catalysts for CO₂ RR.