Toward electrocatalytic chemoenzymatic hydrogen evolution and beyond

Summary Recently, efforts to realize methanol- and hydrogen-based economies coupled with enzymatic machineries e.g., via electrochemical conversion of CO2 and H2O, accelerated. However, major obstacles still need to be overcome to enable application of such methods in real life. In a nutshell, these are the establishment of (1) a scalable sustainable production of renewable hydrogen from water, (2) the energy-efficient production of methanol from carbon dioxide, and (3) low-temperature hydrogen evolution from small C1 molecules like methanol. In this perspective article, we will spread light on the possibilities to pave the way for near-room-temperature hydrogen evolution using aqueous (aq.) methanol by shuttling hydrogen and electrons via chemoenzymatic pathways using electrocatalytic systems.