Electrochemical catalysts to meet the challenge for sustainable fuel production from renewable energy

It is now more than 100 years since the original proposal that a combination of sunlight and appropriate catalysts could provide both renewable energy and a means to transform carbon dioxide. It is almost 50 years since Calvin introduced the concept of an artificial leaf. Yet still, there is no large-scale industrial process that makes economic use of renewable energy to split water and produce a viable fuel on a scale worthy of major financial investment. Research into the fundamental mechanisms of applicable catalysts continues unabated, making use of operando techniques, and new procedures for atomic layer dispersion to maximise the rate of reaction at discrete catalytic centres. Here, we look at developments over the last few years concerning catalysts for water oxidation, carbon dioxide transformation and nitrogen fixation. The emphasis is not on mechanistic understanding but practical significance, thereby questioning where we stand in terms of exploiting contemporary research at the pilot-scale level.