Nature Communications (Apr 2024)

Efficient tandem electroreduction of nitrate into ammonia through coupling Cu single atoms with adjacent Co3O4

  • Yan Liu,
  • Jie Wei,
  • Zhengwu Yang,
  • Lirong Zheng,
  • Jiankang Zhao,
  • Zhimin Song,
  • Yuhan Zhou,
  • Jiajie Cheng,
  • Junyang Meng,
  • Zhigang Geng,
  • Jie Zeng

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48035-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Abstract The nitrate (NO3 −) electroreduction into ammonia (NH3) represents a promising approach for sustainable NH3 synthesis. However, the variation of adsorption configurations renders great difficulties in the simultaneous optimization of binding energy for the intermediates. Though the extensively reported Cu-based electrocatalysts benefit NO3 − adsorption, one of the key issues lies in the accumulation of nitrite (NO2 −) due to its weak adsorption, resulting in the rapid deactivation of catalysts and sluggish kinetics of subsequent hydrogenation steps. Here we report a tandem electrocatalyst by combining Cu single atoms catalysts with adjacent Co3O4 nanosheets to boost the electroreduction of NO3 − to NH3. The obtained tandem catalyst exhibits a yield rate for NH3 of 114.0 mg $${}_{{{{{{\rm{NH}}}}}}_3}$$ NH 3 h−1 cm−2, which exceeds the previous values for the reported Cu-based catalysts. Mechanism investigations unveil that the combination of Co3O4 regulates the adsorption configuration of NO2 − and strengthens the binding with NO2 −, thus accelerating the electroreduction of NO3 − to NH3.