Doping engineering in copper-based electrocatalysts: A strategic approach for enhancing CO2 electroreduction efficiency

Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction is a crucial method for addressing energy issues and achieving carbon neutrality. Doping of Cu catalysts represents an effective approach to regulate electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction. This review article summarizes the research progress on improving the performance of Cu-based material electrocatalysts through doping regulation. The background, fundamental research, evaluation parameters, and methods for catalyst design, along with their influencing factors, are introduced. Emphasis is placed on the impact of doping with different elements (such as noble metals, transition metals, main-group metals, non-metals, etc.) on the performance of Cu-based catalysts, including the mechanisms for enhancing activity, selectivity, and stability. In-situ characterization techniques have revealed the structural evolution and catalytic mechanisms during the doping process. Mechanistic studies, leveraging the ever-advancing computational capabilities and high-throughput methods, have given rise to typical computational descriptors like volcano plots, free-energy diagrams, and machine-learning-based approaches. These descriptors have become key tools for screening high-efficiency catalysts in various application scenarios of the electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR). This article comprehensively summarizes the current research achievements and looks ahead to the future, indicating that strengthening the combination of theory and experiment and exploring industrial applications are the future research directions, aiming to provide a comprehensive reference for the development of highly efficient doped Cu-based electrocatalysts.