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Achieving ultrahigh electrocatalytic NH3 yield rate on Fe-doped Bi2WO6 electrocatalyst

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Abstract

NH3, derived from electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR), is promising to satisfy the need of food production and serve as a carbon-free liquid energy carrier in the near future. Yet major challenges remain in enhancing NH3 yield rate and conversion efficiency of available electrocatalysts. This work achieved an ultrahigh electrocatalytic NH3 yield rate on the 0.50Fe-Bi2WO6 catalyst by a facile Fe-doped strategy. Up to 289 µg·h−1·mgcat−1 of NH3 formation rate was obtained at −0.75 V vs. RHE, which was reliably quantized by indophenol blue and 1H NMR methods. The impressive result is an order of magnitude higher than that of the reported Fe- and Bi-based catalysts, even more superior than the result of single atom Ru catalyst. The key of the outstanding NRR behaviors on the 0.50Fe-Bi2WO6 catalyst is the significant hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) suppression and the synergy between Bi and Fe, which can effectively modulate the electron distribution and accelerate the electron transport. This work endows a new insight to further explore the high-performance electrocatalysts toward NRR.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21675151, 21705145 and 21721003), and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2016YFA0203203). (further details of the experimental section, corresponding calibration curves, control experiment, electrochemical measurement of contrast materials, N2H4 determination, EIS, SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS characterization, and so on) is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3276-9.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China

    Yongqin Liu & Shaojun Dong

  2. State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, Changchun, 130022, China

    Yongqin Liu, Liang Huang, Youxing Fang, Xinyang Zhu & Shaojun Dong

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  1. Yongqin Liu
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Correspondence to Shaojun Dong.

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Liu, Y., Huang, L., Fang, Y. et al. Achieving ultrahigh electrocatalytic NH3 yield rate on Fe-doped Bi2WO6 electrocatalyst. Nano Res. 14, 2711–2716 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3276-9

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