Enhanced N2-to-NH3 conversion efficiency on Cu3P nanoribbon electrocatalyst

• Published in: Nano research Vol. 15; no. 8; pp. 7134 - 7138
• Main Authors: Liu, Qian, Lin, Yiting, Gu, Shuang, Cheng, Ziqiang, Xie, Lisi, Sun, Shengjun, Zhang, Longcheng, Luo, Yongsong, Alshehri, Abdulmohsen Ali, Hamdy, Mohamed S., Kong, Qingquan, Wang, Jiahong, Sun, Xuping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Tsinghua University Press 01.08.2022
• Subjects: Ammonia; Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Carbon; Catalysts; Catalytic activity; Catalytic oxidation; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Efficiency; Electrocatalysis; Electrocatalysts; Electrolysis; Materials Science; Morphology; Nanomaterials; Nanoparticles; Nanoribbons; Nanotechnology; Nitrogen; Quantum dots; Research Article; Cu; P nanoribbon; ammonia electrosynthesis; electrocatalysis; nitrogen reduction reaction
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-022-4568-z

Ambient electroreduction of nitrogen (N 2 ) is considered as a green and feasible approach for ammonia (NH 3 ) synthesis, which urgently demands for efficient electrocatalyst. Morphology has close relationship with catalytic activity of heterogeneous catalysts. Nanoribbon is attractive nanostructure, which possesses the flexibility of one-dimensional nanomaterials, the large surface area of two-dimensional nanomaterials, and lateral size confinement effects. In this work, Cu 3 P nanoribbon is proposed as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for N 2 -to-NH 3 conversion under benign conditions. When measured in N 2 -saturated 0.1 M HCl, such Cu 3 P nanoribbon achieves high performance with an excellent Faradaic efficiency as high as 37.8% and a large yield of 18.9 µg·h −1 µmg cat. −1 at −0.2 V. It also demonstrates outstanding stability in long-term electrolysis test at least for 45 h.