Reducing the atmospheric CO₂ level is of a great interest these days, as it is negatively affecting our environment. Despite the large efforts invested in development of technologies for CO₂ fixation, there is still no large-scale, man-made solution to deal with it. A useful strategic solution is to retrieve CO₂ from the air and to reduce it into valuable products, to establish a closed carbon cycle. Reduction of CO₂ by electrochemical means seems to be the most practical and economical alternative, but there is still much to be done in terms of catalysts’ development, to enable energy-efficient and cost-effective technology at-scale. In this mini-review, we will focus on the progress that has been made in the area of first-row transition metals complexes as catalysts for CO₂ electro-reduction, mostly under conditions that are relevant for large scale applications.

如今，降低大气中的CO ₂水平引起了人们极大的兴趣，因为它对我们的环境产生了负面影响。尽管在开发用于CO ₂固定的技术上投入了大量精力，但仍没有大规模的人为解决方案来解决它。一个有用的战略解决方案是从空气中回收CO ₂并将其还原为有价值的产品，以建立一个封闭的碳循环。减少CO ₂通过电化学方法似乎是最实用和最经济的选择，但是就催化剂的开发而言，要实现大规模的节能和经济高效的技术，仍有许多工作要做。在此小型审查中，我们将重点关注在第一行过渡金属配合物作为CO ₂电还原催化剂的领域中所取得的进展，主要是在与大规模应用相关的条件下。