Heading to Distributed Electrocatalytic Conversion of Small Abundant Molecules into Fuels, Chemicals, and Fertilizers
The centralized production of fuels, chemicals, and fertilizers by thermocatalytic processes sustained by fossil resources is a pillar of modern societies. Electrocatalytic transformations of the abundant small molecules, water, carbon dioxide, dinitrogen, and methane, are emerging routes. Their coupling with renewable sources such as sun power may give rise to a distributed model based on small-scale reactors, so-called artificial leaves. Realizing this vision calls for improved catalytic performance, efforts on reactor and process engineering, and supportive regulatory frameworks. This work puts emphasis in analyzing the core challenge of catalytic performance by defining a common set of figures of merit. This analysis is nuanced by peculiarities inherent to the proposed scheme. This perspective thus aspires to (1) provide a bird’s-eye view of the gap separating them from practical values, (2) identify sources of inefficiency, and (3) establish a qualitative comparison among their feasibility, resulting in H2O ≫ CO2 ≥ N2 > CH4.