About this Research Topic

Background

The rapid consumption of fossil fuel has irreversible adverse environmental impact on earth. Climate change caused by global warming is already having comprehensive consequences for humans, such as regional drought, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and loss of biodiversity. Present estimates suggest that the greenhouse gas emission has reached 38 Gt in 2019, while natural carbon sinks remove only ~10 Gt of CO2 per year. Increasing numbers of countries around the world are pledging to build a carbon-neutral society and a better future, at this stage, it is urgent to achieve energy infrastructures without using fossil fuels and develop man-made electrocatalysis processes that can rapidly reduce CO2 in nature. The global vision towards building a closed carbon cycle underlines both fundamental understanding of new chemistries and materials.

Electrocatalysis alters the electrochemical reaction rate and provides new reaction pathways by electricity, and the electrocatalytic processes are widely seen in both energy storage applications which use clean energy to replace fossil fuels, and energy conversion techniques that reduce CO2 emission. Hence it is a promising technology in the context of achieving a carbon-neutral future. The goal of this Research Topic is to provide an opportunity for researchers to share their views and recent research progress in the development of electrocatalysis applications for achieving carbon neutrality and sustainable future. The objectives are to improve efficiencies of electrocatalytic reactions that store electricity by irreversible chemical reactions or use electricity to electrochemically convert CO2 into chemicals and fuels. Both clean energy storage and carbon offsetting require deep understanding of the electronic structure of the catalyst, the charge/mass transfer at the interface, the participating chemical species, the energy alignment, and reaction kinetics. This Research Topic highlights the recent experimental progress and computational results related to electrocatalysis. We hope the successful publication of this research topic may further inspire researchers in different fields for discovering more breakthroughs.

We invite authors to contribute comprehensive reviews and original research articles covering the most recent progress and new developments in the field of electrochemical energy conversion and storage. Welcomed formats include Original Research, Reviews, Perspective, and Mini Review. We believe this Research Topic will bring a broad impact and is of interest to a broad spectrum of readers in chemistry, material science and engineering backgrounds.

We welcome submissions to this Research Topic in areas including but are not limited to:

• Theoretical simulations of the mechanisms of electrocatalysis reactions, theoretical predictions of novel catalysts in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis

• Novel catalyst design for CO2 reduction, organic electrochemistry, electrosynthesis of small molecules, Li-S, Li-Air and flow batteries, fuel cells, hydrogen evolution reaction, and oxygen evolution reaction

• Advanced characterization techniques for materials or electrochemical pathways

• Novel reactors design and all other technological capabilities that improve cell efficiency

Keywords: Electrocatalysis, Energy, Environment, Carbon Neutrality

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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