Systematic mapping on the evaluation of electrochemical CO2 conversion to fuels/chemicals/value-added products and way forward for breakthroughs in electrocatalysis

Primary approach in transitional and transformative analysis on the electrocatalysts for CO2RR research in the past years to the present and future can be clearly explained us-ing systematic mapping/analysis. Data used in this study were sourced from the Scopus (R) database for the period of electrocatalysts for CO2RR covering 1936 to 2020. Analysis of the co-authorship of authors, organizations, and countries, co-citation of authors, citation of documents and sources, and co-occurrence of author keywords were performed using VOS viewer (R) software. A total of 7573 research papers was published on electrocatalysts for CO2RR research which grew gradually over 51 years. This translated to scientific publi-cations of 751 (7.90% growth) and 975 (29.83% growth) papers in 2019 and 2020, respec-tively. China was the leading country (221 papers and 50.11% of the total publications) with the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences accounting for 91 publications as the top -ranked organization while Wang Y. published the highest number of research articles (107 documents with 3087 citations). The results revealed the importance of cross-national and international cooperation in this field; with Energy (3317 papers) ranked as the top sub-ject category. The co-citation of authors, citation of participatory publications, and sources showed that Lyngfelt A., Lewis N.S. (2006), and Energy and Fuels journal with citations of 4028, 5480, and 12,857, respectively, were ranked highest. The most used keyword was Carbon dioxide reduction with 1147 occurrences. Research hotspots in the electrocata-lysts for CO2RR were summed up as the application of highly efficient electrocatalysts to electrochemically convert/reduce CO2 to products of interest with high activity, stability, and selectivity to mitigate continuous anthropogenic emission of notorious CO2. Future re-search lies in the implementation of highly efficient porous and conductive electrocatalysts for CO2RR. In addition, the way forward in electrocatalysis for future breakthroughs was further summarized.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of African Institute of Mathematical Sciences / Next Einstein Initiative. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Automated summary

The primary approach in transitional and transformative analysis on electrocatalysts for CO2RR research in the past years to the present and future is explained using systematic mapping/analysis. The study used data from the Scopus database and analyzed the co-authorship, co-citation, and co-occurrence of author keywords. China emerged as the leading country in this field with the highest number of publications, and Energy ranked as the top subject category. The importance of international cooperation, highly efficient electrocatalysts, and the reduction of CO2 emissions were emphasized.