2024/04/29 by Yan Liu, Jie Wei, Zhengwu Yang +8 · 1 citation
Chemical Engineering · Computer Science · Energy · #Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction #Caching and Content Delivery #Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-024-48035-4
openalex publication_date 2024/04/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract The nitrate (NO 3 − ) electroreduction into ammonia (NH 3 ) represents a promising approach for sustainable NH 3 synthesis. However, the variation of adsorption configurations renders great difficulties in the simultaneous optimization of binding energy for the intermediates. Though the extensively reported Cu-based electrocatalysts benefit NO 3 − adsorption, one of the key issues lies in the accumulation of nitrite (NO 2 − ) due to its weak adsorption, resulting in the rapid deactivation of catalysts and sluggish kinetics of subsequent hydrogenation steps. Here we report a tandem electrocatalyst by combining Cu single atoms catalysts with adjacent Co 3 O 4 nanosheets to boost the electroreduction of NO 3 − to NH 3 . The obtained tandem catalyst exhibits a yield rate for NH 3 of 114.0 mg _\rmNH3 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>NH</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> h −1 cm −2 , which exceeds the previous values for the reported Cu-based catalysts. Mechanism investigations unveil that the combination of Co 3 O 4 regulates the adsorption configuration of NO 2 − and strengthens the binding with NO 2 − , thus accelerating the electroreduction of NO 3 − to NH 3 .