Recent advances of metal suboxide catalysts for carbon-neutral energy applications

Abstract

Metal suboxides have emerged as a class of promising candidates for many electrocatalytic applications owing to their enhanced electrical conductivity and chemical activities. In this review, we have summarized the recent progress of metal suboxides. We have firstly introduced the discovery of metal suboxides, and their categories according to element tables. Then various metal suboxides synthetic methods have been systematically illustrated involving solid-state synthesis, high-temperature synthesis, low-temperature synthesis and plasma-driven synthetic methods, etc. In addition, their applications have been demonstrated in the field of water, carbon and nitrogen cycle-based energy catalysis technologies involving electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction, oxygen reduction reaction, carbon dioxide reduction, urea oxidation reaction, methanol oxidation reaction, nitrogen reduction reaction and nitrate reduction reaction, etc. Finally, we make a brief conclusion about the developments of metal suboxides, giving an outlook for future research challenges. These insights are expected to hold promise for developing metal suboxide catalysts toward practical applications.