Surface Reconstruction on Uniform Cu Nanodisks Boosted Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction to Ammonia
Journal article, 2022

The Haber-Bosch (HB) process has provided most of commercial ammonia at the expense of high energy consumption and high CO2 emission. Nitrate electroreduction is showing great potential as an alternative route for the green and scale-up synthesis of ammonia at ambient conditions. However, the performance has lagged due to lack of efficient electrocatalysts. In this work, we present the facile synthesis of uniform Cu nanodisks with exposed (111) facets as highly active electrocatalyst for electrochemical ammonia synthesis, delivering a high ammonia yield of 2.16 mg mg-1cat h-1 and a maximum Faradaic efficiency of 81.1% at -0.5 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). The remarkable activity is originated from the surface reconstructed triatomic Cu clusters due to the cathodic deoxygenation process. As a result, the reconstructed surface shows enhanced affinity to the adsorption of nitrate ions which undergo successive break of three N-O bonds, followed by subsequent formation of three N-H bonds to finally form NH3. The present study provides the feasible preparation of Cu based advanced catalysts and a unique insight into the mechanism of nitrate electroreduction.

Author

Keming Wu

Xidian University

Congcong Sun

Xidian University

Zhenni Wang

Xidian University

Qian Song

Xidian University

Xiaoxia Bai

Xidian University

Xin Yu

Jinan University

Qiang Li

Xidian University

Zheng Wang

Xidian University

Hui Zhang

Xidian University

Jian Zhang

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Xin Tong

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Yanping Liang

Xidian University

Ajit Khosla

Xidian University

Zhenhuan Zhao

Xidian University

ACS Materials Letters

26394979 (eISSN)

Vol. 4 650-656

Subject Categories

Inorganic Chemistry

Materials Chemistry

Other Chemistry Topics

DOI

10.1021/acsmaterialslett.2c00149

More information

Latest update

3/31/2022