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  • Review Article
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Tandem architectures for electrochemical CO2 reduction: from coupled atomic sites to tandem electrolysers

Nature Nanotechnology (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

This Review provides a perspective on tandem catalysis schemes applied to the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2). We define and classify microscopic and macroscopic site and cell tandem concepts pursued so far and provide a critical assessment and performance comparison against non-tandem systems. Our analysis demonstrates that tandem approaches generally seem to improve the selectivity for oxygenates compared with CO2-fed copper-based or non-tandem systems. However, tandem approaches are typically inferior in terms of ethylene production compared with non-tandem approaches. The tandem electrolyser concept seems to be the most promising tandem concept owing to the reduced materials complexity and possibility of individual tuning of microenvironments for the CO-producing and CO–CO-coupling catalytic phases. We conclude our Review by addressing key remaining challenges and promising future research directions in the field of tandem CO2 electrocatalysis.

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Fig. 1: Classification of tandem catalytic approaches according to the distance of active sites.
Fig. 2: Tandem catalyst concept and comparison with state-of-the-art non-tandem/pure Cu-based approaches.
Fig. 3: Schematic illustration of three types of tandem electrodes for CO2 electrolysis.
Fig. 4: Tandem electrolyser systems.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 101006701, ECOFUEL.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Electrochemical Energy, Catalysis, and Materials Science Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering Division, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Michael Filippi, Tim Möller, Liang Liang, Xingli Wang & Peter Strasser

  2. Department of Electrochemistry and Catalysis, Leibniz Institute for Catalysis, Rostock, Germany

    Wen Ju

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  1. Michael Filippi
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  2. Wen Ju
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  3. Tim Möller
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M.F., W.J., T.M., L.L., X.W. and P.S. wrote the paper and prepared the figures.

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Correspondence to Peter Strasser.

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Filippi, M., Ju, W., Möller, T. et al. Tandem architectures for electrochemical CO2 reduction: from coupled atomic sites to tandem electrolysers. Nat. Nanotechnol. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02117-6

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