Design principles for high-performance O2 reduction reaction using novel materials

Abstract

The relentless pace of industrialization, population growth, and global development have led to rising energy demand, predominantly met by fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas, which account for over 80% of global energy consumption. In 2022, coal demand increased by 0.6%, reaching its highest consumption since 2014, and coal production rose by over 7% compared to 2021. The high and practically unchanged share of fossil fuel in the rapidly increasing energy consumption has the consequence of the rapid depletion of fossil fuel resources and emission of CO2 pollutant gas, surging to an unprecedented 39.3 gigatons CO2 emission in 2022[1]. The systematic representation of the trend of global carbon emissions by year and global energy consumption from different energy resources in 2022 has been shown in Figures 1a and 1b, respectively.