1975/06/01 by Mengfan Wang, Sisi Liu, Haoqing Ji +4 · 3 citations
Chemical Engineering · Computer Science · Energy · Social Sciences · #Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques #Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction #Caching and Content Delivery #Urbanization and City Planning
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-021-23360-0
openalex publication_date 1975/06/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/24
The electroreduction of nitrogen to ammonia offers a promising alternative to the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. Unfortunately, the reaction suffers from low activity and selectivity, owing to competing hydrogen evolution and the poor accessibility of nitrogen to the electrocatalyst. Here, we report that deliberately triggering a salting-out effect in a highly concentrated electrolyte can simultaneously tackle the above challenges and achieve highly efficient ammonia synthesis. The solute ions exhibit strong affinity for the surrounding H<sub>2</sub>O molecules, forming a hydration shell and limiting their efficacy as both proton sources and solvents. This not only effectively suppresses hydrogen evolution but also ensures considerable nitrogen flux at the reaction interface via heterogeneous nucleation of the precipitate, thus facilitating the subsequent reduction process in terms of both selectivity and activity. As expected, even when assembled with a metal-free electrocatalyst, a high Faradaic efficiency of 71 ± 1.9% is achieved with this proof-of-concept system.