Abstract Renewable energy has been a hot topic for sometimes due to its ability to minimize the global dependence on fossil fuels which is drastically declining, and more importantly the need to alleviate the emission of greenhouse gases. The uncontrollable releases of CO2 into the atmosphere as a result of excessive utilization of carbon-containing fossil fuel contributes significantly to the daily climate change and global warming. Numerous literature hasdemonstrated the uniqueness of Cu-based electrocatalysts to convert CO2 to useful fuels including alcohol, aldehydes and hydrocarbons. This review is an attempt to look into the expectation, realities of the mechanism on Cu electrodes and its prospect to convert CO2 to aldehydes, hydrocarbon and alcohol products by a way of utilizing CO2 for industrial feedstocks. In addition, we present some realized advancements on the pathways for CO2 reduction to C1–C3 products using Cu-based electrocatalytic materials and some expectations for the new mechanistic insights on the Cu electrodes for the electroreduction of CO2 to C3 and C4 products. The effective roles of electrocatalytic supports in achieving better activity and selectivity of the Cu-based electrocatalysts for the CO2RR to a practical significance were also suggested. To conclude this, several commonly overlooked factors were suggested as the challenges and prospects for fostering more improvements on the intrinsic electrocatalytic properties of the Cu-based materials.

中文翻译：

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CO2 电催化转化为烃类和醇类产品：Cu 基材料的现实和前景

摘要 可再生能源有时一直是一个热门话题，因为它能够最大限度地减少全球对化石燃料的依赖，而化石燃料的依赖性正在急剧下降，更重要的是需要减少温室气体的排放。由于过度使用含碳化石燃料，二氧化碳无法控制地释放到大气中，这对日常气候变化和全球变暖产生了重大影响。许多文献已经证明了基于铜的电催化剂在将 CO2 转化为有用的燃料（包括醇、醛和碳氢化合物）方面的独特性。本综述试图探讨 Cu 电极机理的期望、现实及其通过利用 CO2 作为工业原料将 CO2 转化为醛类、烃类和醇类产品的前景。此外，我们展示了使用铜基电催化材料将 CO2 还原为 C1-C3 产品的途径方面的一些已实现的进展，以及对将 CO2 电还原为 C3 和 C4 产品的 Cu 电极的新机理见解的一些期望。还提出了电催化载体在实现更好的铜基电催化剂对 CO2RR 的活性和选择性方面的有效作用，具有实际意义。总之，提出了几个通常被忽视的因素作为促进铜基材料固有电催化性能进一步改进的挑战和前景。