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Cu-based MOF-derivatived catalyst for efficient electrocatalytic reduction of nitrogen and nitrate to produce ammonia

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Abstract

Electrochemical synthesis of ammonia is considered to be a promising approach due to its environmentally friendly process, great effort has been made for improving the catalyst to obtain satisfying catalytic activity and selectivity. Herein, we attempted to prepare the MOF-based derivative Cu/Cu2O@C via the wet method for N2 and NO3− reduction to synthesize ammonia. For the nitrogen reduction, the as-prepared catalyst exhibited an excellent ammonia yield (6.02 μmol∙cm−2∙h−1) and Faraday efficiency (FE, 10.48%) at − 0.5 V. While the overall yield of catalytic nitrate reduction reached 158.66 μmol∙cm−2∙h−1 and the FE reached 76.97% owing to higher solubility and a better conversion pathway. This is considerably higher than the yield of nitrogen reduction while preventing the energy consumption of reforming hydrogen production. This work helps to promote the development of artificial ammonia synthesis under ambient conditions.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Supports of the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (DUT22LK09), the Foundation of State Key Laboratory of High-efficiency Utilization of Coal and Green Chemical Engineering (2022-K70), the Open Foundation of Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering, MOE (KLIEEE-20-01, KLIEEE-21-02), the Hefei Advanced Computing Center, and Supercomputing Center of Dalian University of Technology for this work are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China

    Guangxin Li, Sensen Xue, Haiding Zhu, Zhuangzhuang Liang, Fang Zhao, Qianqian Hua, Liguo Gao & Anmin Liu

  2. School of Ocean Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Panjin, 124221, China

    Xuefeng Ren

  3. Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education), School of Environmental Sciences and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China

    Wei Xiong

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  1. Guangxin Li
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Correspondence to Anmin Liu.

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Li, G., Xue, S., Zhu, H. et al. Cu-based MOF-derivatived catalyst for efficient electrocatalytic reduction of nitrogen and nitrate to produce ammonia. Ionics 29, 2515–2522 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-023-05008-9

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