Biomass-derived oxygen-doped hollow carbon microtubes for electrocatalytic N2-to-NH3 fixation under ambient conditions

Electrocatalytic N2 reduction as an alternative approach to the energy-intensive and large CO2-producing Haber–Bosch process for NH3 synthesis under mild conditions has attracted extensive attention. Current research efforts on N2 reduction have mainly focused on metal-based catalysts, but metal-fre...

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Published inChemical communications (Cambridge, England) Vol. 55; no. 18; pp. 2684 - 2687
Main Authors Wu, Tengteng, Li, Peipei, Wang, Huanbo, Zhao, Runbo, Zhou, Qiang, Kong, Wenhan, Liu, Meiling, Zhang, Youyu, Sun, Xuping, Feng (Frank) Gong
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 26.02.2019
Subjects
Ammonia
carbon
Catalysis
Catalysts
chemical reduction
electrodes
hydrochloric acid
hydrogen
kapok
nitrogen
oxygen
Reduction
Selectivity
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Summary:Electrocatalytic N2 reduction as an alternative approach to the energy-intensive and large CO2-producing Haber–Bosch process for NH3 synthesis under mild conditions has attracted extensive attention. Current research efforts on N2 reduction have mainly focused on metal-based catalysts, but metal-free alternatives can avoid the issue of metal ion release. In this work, oxygen-doped hollow carbon microtubes (O-KFCNTs) derived from natural kapok fibers are reported as a metal-free NRR electrocatalyst for N2-to-NH3 conversion with excellent selectivity. In 0.1 M HCl, the O-KFCNTs achieve a high faradaic efficiency of 9.1% at −0.80 V vs. a reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) and a NH3 yield rate of 25.12 μg h−1 mgcat.−1 at −0.85 V vs. RHE under ambient conditions. Notably, this catalyst also demonstrates high stability.
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ISSN:1359-7345
1364-548X
1364-548X
DOI:10.1039/c8cc09867k