ZHANG Lifang ^{1, 2}, LI Chengjin ², ZHOU Xiaoxia ², SHEN Zongyang ¹, CHEN Hangrong ²
(1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jingdezhen Ceramic University, Jingdezhen 333403, Jiangxi, China; 2. Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China)

Abstract: Electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) is an approach to convert CO₂ to value-added fuels and chemicals by using intermittent renewable energy, which is considered as one of the most potential CO₂ conversion technologies. However, there still exist various problems, such as high overpotential, poor product selectivity and low stability. Therefore, it is a challenge to design and prepare highly efficient low-cost electrocatalysts. Metal-based electrocatalysts have gained a great deal of attention, owing to their multifunctional active sites, tunable morphology structure and adjustable chemical composition. In recent years, the strain effect, electronic effect and carrier effect produced by the construction of heterogeneous interfaces through interface engineering have provided new ideas for obtaining efficient CO₂ electrocatalysts. Herein, based on the reaction process of electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction, the detailed mechanisms of the interface to influence CO₂RR will be analyzed, including core-shell structure, heterojunction structure and support structure, with their effects on the performances of electro-catalytic reduction of CO₂for the inorganic nanostructured materials that will be reviewed. Finally, the problems and new opportunities of interface engineering in CO₂RR are discussed and prospected.
Key words: CO₂ catalytic reduction; electrocatalysis; interface engineering; core-shell structure; heterojunction structure; carrier structure