Efficient electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction to ammonia with aqueous silver nanodots
The electrocatalytic nitrogen (N ) reduction reaction (NRR) relies on the development of highly efficient electrocatalysts and electrocatalysis systems. Herein, we report a non-loading electrocatalysis system, where the electrocatalysts are dispersed in aqueous solution rather than loading them on e...
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Published in | Communications chemistry Vol. 4; no. 1; p. 10 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
Nature Publishing Group
29.01.2021
Nature Publishing Group UK Nature Portfolio |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The electrocatalytic nitrogen (N
) reduction reaction (NRR) relies on the development of highly efficient electrocatalysts and electrocatalysis systems. Herein, we report a non-loading electrocatalysis system, where the electrocatalysts are dispersed in aqueous solution rather than loading them on electrode substrates. The system consists of aqueous Ag nanodots (AgNDs) as the catalyst and metallic titanium (Ti) mesh as the current collector for electrocatalytic NRR. The as-synthesized AgNDs, homogeneously dispersed in 0.1 M Na
SO
solution (pH = 10.5), can achieve an NH
yield rate of 600.4 ± 23.0 μg h
mg
with a faradaic efficiency (FE) of 10.1 ± 0.7% at -0.25 V (vs. RHE). The FE can be further improved to be 20.1 ± 0.9% at the same potential by using Ti mesh modified with oxygen vacancy-rich TiO
nanosheets as the current collector. Utilizing the aqueous AgNDs catalyst, a Ti plate based two-electrode configured flow-type electrochemical reactor was developed to achieve an NH
yield rate of 804.5 ± 30.6 μg h
mg
with a FE of 8.2 ± 0.5% at a voltage of -1.8 V. The designed non-loading electrocatalysis system takes full advantage of the AgNDs' active sites for N
adsorption and activation, following an alternative hydrogenation mechanism revealed by theoretical calculations. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2399-3669 2399-3669 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s42004-021-00449-7 |