Choosing Impactful Perspectives for Energy Research: A Case Study of CO2 Electroreduction

As an editor of a journal that publishes in the area of energy research, I get to see transitions in topical interests of the field. These transitions can be technologically significant. For example, the classes of materials used in photovoltaics, or the use of fuel cells versus batteries in vehicle electrification. These transitions can also be more subtle and highlight shifts in perspectives the field is bringing toward research problems. I joined ACS Energy Letters as an editor in 2018, and in the past few years I started to notice a change in the focus of papers submitted to and published by the journal in the area of CO₂ electroreduction. While there is not agreement on whether CO₂ electroreduction will be broadly deployed, there has been consistent interest from the field of energy researchers. The shift I noticed is not from one chemistry to another (although the specific products of interest have evolved) but a switch in the perspective of researchers. To look into this shift in perspective, I searched all papers published by ACS Energy Letters since 2018 with the keyword “CO₂ reduction” and focused on papers examining electrochemical reactions, processes, and systems. I categorized the papers as focusing on one of the following aspects of CO₂ electroreduction technology: Catalyst: At the active site, often presenting new catalyst materials, new synthetic methods for catalysts, characterization of the active site, surface reaction mechanisms, etc. Environment: The environment where the chemistry occurs, discussing the role of pH, electrolyte, additive layers, flow rates, temperatures, chemical potentials, etc. Process: A process systems perspective focusing on how to assemble electrochemical reactors, flow patterns, bulk resistance losses, scale up viability, overall performance, etc. These classifications fall in the areas of catalyst, reaction, and process or systems science and engineering that are common to the scale up of chemical conversion processes. The compiled group of 167 papers results from the publication of ∼20–30 papers per year in ACS Energy Letters over 7 years, demonstrating consistent interest in the field (see Supporting Information). After categorizing the papers, the shift in perspective I sensed became clear, as seen in Figure 1. From 2018 to 2024, the number of papers focused on studies of the catalyst in CO₂ electroreduction decreased from 18 to 4, or from 75% to 18% of the total papers published on the topic. Alternatively, the number of papers focused on the environment where the chemistry occurs increased from 2 to 9, or from 8 to 40% of the papers. The data in Figure 1 suggests that this change in topical focus occurred steadily over the past 6 years. Papers focused on the CO₂ electroreduction process have remain consistent. Figure 1. % of published papers on CO₂ electroreduction published in ACS Energy Letters categorized based on their topical focus: Process, Catalyst, Environment, or Mixed (see text for explanations) since 2018. The papers were identified by searching all papers published in ACS Energy Letters for “CO₂ reduction” and only categorizing those that focus on electroreduction. The shift in perspective of researchers on CO₂ electroreduction from the active catalyst site to the environment where the reaction occurs is apparent from the data. It is interesting to consider what may have driven this change. The U.S. Department of Energy published a document in 2017 that summarized Basic Research Needs in Catalysis Science and highlighted the role of catalyst design “beyond the binding site”─this seems consistent? (1) It is also reasonable to consider that early discoveries of electrocatalysts that enabled high selectivity for specific products at low current densities motivated studies at higher current densities where mass, heat, and electron transport can dictate performance. Clearly, this would also shift the focus of researchers to the environment around the binding site. Perhaps this trend is just the natural development of new energy technologies where a physical/chemical process is envisioned, initial material discovery is performed, and then analysis of increasing system time and length scales is performed in attempts to scale up. But it is interesting to wonder if the focus on active site design will push the field forward further than the design of the environment around the site. So, what did I learn from this retrospective analysis? My editorial is not meant to comment on the potential viability of CO₂ electroreduction, but instead to try to learn from how an intensely studied research topic evolves. The results seem to suggest that researchers who can think broadly about a topic area, who do not follow the common approach of the field and instead focus efforts from a different perspective, may end up having the longest lasting impact on the field. However, this can be hard as funding agencies, journals and referees may not recognize a new perspective as useful if it is not the current norm. But it seems that research papers that bring new viewpoints to problems of broad interest are likely to be the most impactful and have the potential to shift the perspective of the field. The Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.4c02907. Focus on electroreduction of CO₂ (and CO), excluding photo- and thermochemical approaches – original articles and perspectives (XLSX) Most electronic Supporting Information files are available without a subscription to ACS Web Editions. Such files may be downloaded by article for research use (if there is a public use license linked to the relevant article, that license may permit other uses). Permission may be obtained from ACS for other uses through requests via the RightsLink permission system: http://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/permissions.html. This article references 1 other publications. This article has not yet been cited by other publications.