Catalysis in Renewable Energy: Theoretical Insights and Industrial Applications

Bassey Edem Nyong

doi:10.53941/rset.2025.100007

Abstract

Catalysis is central to advancing renewable energy technologies, enabling key reactions such as water splitting, CO₂ reduction, and biomass conversion. This review outlines catalytic materials and their performance across major green energy processes by surveying literature from the past 5 years using performance metrics such as overpotential, Faradaic efficiency, turnover frequency, and catalyst stability to benchmark catalytic systems. For hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), platinum (Pt) remains the gold standard with low overpotentials (20–30 mV) and high stability. Cost-effective alternatives like nickel (Ni) and molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) offer moderate efficiency in alkaline and neutral media. In the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), iridium and ruthenium oxides dominate acidic conditions, while NiFe-layered double hydroxides and cobalt oxides perform well in alkaline media with overpotentials of 250–350 mV. Electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction utilizes silver (Ag), gold (Au), and copper (Cu) to selectively yield CO, formate, and hydrocarbons. Single-atom catalysts (SACs) are emerging for their high activity and tunable sites. Thermocatalytic CO₂ hydrogenation over Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃ (CZA) yields methanol at moderate efficiency. Biomass upgrading through zeolites, metal-supported catalysts, and enzymes enables high biofuel yields, though catalyst deactivation remains a challenge. This review concludes that a synergistic approach combining theoretical modeling, advanced material synthesis, and machine learning screening is critical for scalable, sustainable catalysis. These insights offer a framework for designing next-generation catalysts for industrial deployment.

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