Interfacial engineering of carbon-based materials for efficient electrocatalysis: Recent advances and future

Carbon-based materials are widely studied for their unique advantages in electrocatalysis. Despite significant progress, the precise interface construction and mechanism exploration of carbon-based materials in the field of electrocatalysis is still in the early stages. Recently, our group and other peers demonstrated that by introducing heterogeneous components into carbon-based materials, and the forming of specific interfaces will serve as active sites or major reaction sites for electrochemical reactions (OER, HER, ORR, CO₂RR, NRR, etc.). Modulating the catalyst interface environment and chemical adsorption behavior through interface engineering is an effective strategy to improve the catalytic activity. This review summarizes the latest progress in the field of carbon-based electrocatalyst in a timely and comprehensive manner, including the classification of carbon-based materials and the interface problems involved, as well as the preparation methods of carbon-based materials in recent years. The interface engineering strategies of carbon-based materials, the structure-activity relationship between interface structure and performance, as well as the potential applications of carbon-based materials in heterogeneous catalytic reactions and energy conversion are discussed in detail. Finally, we outline the current challenges and identify the opportunities facing this emerging sector.