Metal–CO2 Batteries at the Crossroad to Practical Energy Storage and CO2 Recycle

Abstract Metal–CO 2 batteries show great promise in meeting the growing energy, chemical, and environmental demands of daily life and industry, because of their advantages of high flexibility and efficiency in both energy storage and CO 2 recycle applications. It has been a trend that Li/Na‐CO 2 and Zn/Al‐CO 2 systems show different developments to achieve practical energy storage (e.g., high electricity supply) and CO 2 recycling (e.g., flexible chemical production), respectively, which is often neglected. This inhibits the application of metal–CO 2 batteries in maximizing energy supply and value‐added CO 2 conversion. This progress report presents a critically selected overview of the individual developments of metal–CO 2 batteries with emphasis on diverse fundamental origins, performance advantages, and the future of these two systems. Furthermore, the reaction pathways, particularly for catalytic materials, for the Li/Na‐CO 2 and Zn/Al‐CO 2 systems are discussed. Finally, the challenges of these two systems along with a hybrid Li/Na‐CO 2 battery design that may simultaneously provide high operating voltages and flexible chemicals are outlined.