High-performance artificial nitrogen fixation at ambient conditions using a metal-free electrocatalyst
By Weibin Qiu, Xiaoxiang Xie, Jianding Qiu, Weihai Fang, Ruping Liang, Xiang Ren, Xuqiang Ji, Guanwei Cui, Abdullah M. Asiri, G. Cui and 2 more. Nature Communications, 2018
645 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Conversion of naturally abundant nitrogen to ammonia is a key (bio)chemical process to sustain life and represents a major challenge in chemistry and biology. Electrochemical reduction is emerging as a sustainable strategy for artificial nitrogen fixation at ambient conditions by tackling the hydrogen- and energy-intensive operations of the Haber–Bosch process. However, it is severely challenged by nitrogen activation and requires efficient catalysts for the nitrogen reduction reaction. Here we report that a boron carbide nanosheet acts as a metal-free catalyst for high-performance electrochemical nitrogen-to-ammonia fixation at ambient conditions. The catalyst can achieve a high ammonia yield of 26.57 μg h–1 mg–1cat. and a fairly high Faradaic efficiency of 15.95% at –0.75 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, placing it among the most active aqueous-based nitrogen reduction reaction electrocatalysts. Notably, it also shows high electrochemical stability and excellent selectivity. The catalytic mechanism is assessed using density functional theory calculations. Electrochemical reduction of nitrogen is a promising route to industrial-scale nitrogen fixation at ambient conditions, but is challenged by activation of inert nitrogen. Here the authors report a metal-free catalyst that selectively reduces nitrogen to ammonia with high efficiency and stability.
Subfields: Catalysis, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dea87575d538fd485671b0bbba98ea97ec7a0383
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