Enhanced photocatalytic N2 fixation via defective and fluoride modified TiO2 surface

By Renquan Guan, Dandan Wang, Yujun Zhang, Chen Liu, W. Xu, Jiaou Wang, Zhao Zhao, M. Feng, Q. Shang, Zaicheng Sun. 2021

186 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Photocatalytic N2 fixation (PNF) provides a low-cost route to generate ammonia. The poor conversion efficiency from photon to ammonia seriously hinders the step forward because of the low concentration of N2 molecules. Herein, we demonstrate a photocatalyst with surface oxygen vacancies (Vo) and a F modified surface to facilitate N2 adsorption and activation on the surface of catalysts. The Vo site promotes the chemical adsorption of N2, electron transfer from catalyst to N2. F modification switches the TiO2 surface properties from hydrophilic to aerophilic, thus facilitating the adsorption of N2. Meanwhile, the hydrogen reduction reaction (HER) is suppressed, as protons hard to adsorb on F capped surfaces. The optimal NH3 production rate can reach 206 μmolh−1g−1, which is ∼ 9 times higher than that of pure TiO2 nanoparticles (∼23 μmolh−1g−1). This report provides a potential strategy to overcome mass transfer limitation and achieve a high conversion efficiency in PNF.

Subfields: Catalysis, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/475a3b0f703e0df4ba00d608fdb853b2d678c927