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Electrocatalytic N2 reduction to NH3 with high Faradaic efficiency enabled by vanadium phosphide nanoparticle on V foil

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Abstract

To develop highly efficient electrochemical catalysts for N2 fixation is important to sustainable ambient NH3 production through the N2 reduction reaction (NRR). Herein, we demonstrate the development of vanadium phosphide nanoparticle on V foil as a high-efficiency and stable catalyst for ambient NH3 production with excellent selectivity. The high Faradaic efficiency of 22% with a large NH3 yield of 8.35 × 10−11 mol·s−1·cm−2 was obtained at 0 V vs. the reversible hydrogen electrode in acid solution, superior to all previously studied V-based NRR catalysts. Density functional theory calculations are also utilized to have an insight into the catalytic mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21575137).

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  1. Peipei Wei and Qin Geng contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China

    Peipei Wei, Qin Geng, Ali Imran Channa, Xin Tong, Yongsong Luo, Zhiming Wang & Xuping Sun

  2. Green Catalysis Center and College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Siyu Lu

  3. The Key Laboratory of Life-Organic Analysis and Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Intermediates and Analysis of Natural Medicine, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, 273165, China

    Guang Chen

  4. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, China

    Shuyan Gao

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  1. Peipei Wei
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  2. Qin Geng
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  4. Xin Tong
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Correspondence to Zhiming Wang or Xuping Sun.

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Wei, P., Geng, Q., Channa, A.I. et al. Electrocatalytic N2 reduction to NH3 with high Faradaic efficiency enabled by vanadium phosphide nanoparticle on V foil. Nano Res. 13, 2967–2972 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2956-9

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