Crystal‐Phase‐Engineered PdCu Electrocatalyst for Enhanced Ammonia Synthesis

• Published in: Angewandte Chemie International Edition Vol. 59; no. 7; pp. 2649 - 2653
• Main Authors: Tong, Wu, Huang, Bolong, Wang, Pengtang, Li, Leigang, Shao, Qi, Huang, Xiaoqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 10.02.2020
• Edition: International ed. in English
• Subjects: Ammonia; ammonia synthesis; Catalysis; Chemical reduction; crystal phase engineering; Density functional theory; Electrocatalysts; Electrolysis; electroreduction; Engineering; Face centered cubic lattice; Nanoparticles; Nitrogen; nitrogen fixation; ordered structures; Selectivity; Synthesis; electroreduction; ordered structures; nitrogen fixation; crystal phase engineering; ammonia synthesis
• ISSN: 1433-7851; 1521-3773
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.201913122

Crystal phase engineering is a powerful strategy for regulating the performance of electrocatalysts towards many electrocatalytic reactions, while its impact on the nitrogen electroreduction has been largely unexplored. Herein, we demonstrate that structurally ordered body‐centered cubic (BCC) PdCu nanoparticles can be adopted as active, selective, and stable electrocatalysts for ammonia synthesis. Specifically, the BCC PdCu exhibits excellent activity with a high NH3 yield of 35.7 μg h−1 mg−1cat, Faradaic efficiency of 11.5 %, and high selectivity (no N2H4 is detected) at −0.1 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, outperforming its counterpart, face‐centered cubic (FCC) PdCu, and most reported nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) electrocatalysts. It also exhibits durable stability for consecutive electrolysis for five cycles. Density functional theory calculation reveals that strong orbital interactions between Pd and neighboring Cu sites in BCC PdCu obtained by structure engineering induces an evident correlation effect for boosting up the Pd 4d electronic activities for efficient NRR catalysis. Our findings open up a new avenue for designing active and stable electrocatalysts towards NRR. At face value: The body‐centered cubic (BCC) PdCu nanoparticles that were constructed and adopted as an active, selective, and stable electrocatalyst for the nitrogen reduction reaction display far better performance than the conventional face‐centered cubic (FCC) PdCu electrocatalyst.