High-Efficiency Electrosynthesis of Ammonia with Selective Reduction of Nitrate in Neutral Media Enabled by Self-Supported Mn2CoO4 Nanoarray

Lisi Xie; Qian Liu; Shengjun Sun; Long Hu; Longcheng Zhang; Donglin Zhao; Qin Liu; Jie Chen; Jun Li; Ling Ouyang; Abdulmohsen Ali Alshehri; Mohamed S Hamdy; Qingquan Kong; Xuping Sun

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c07818

High-Efficiency Electrosynthesis of Ammonia with Selective Reduction of Nitrate in Neutral Media Enabled by Self-Supported Mn₂CoO₄ Nanoarray

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Jul 14. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c07818. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Lisi Xie¹, Qian Liu¹, Shengjun Sun², Long Hu², Longcheng Zhang², Donglin Zhao², Qin Liu², Jie Chen², Jun Li², Ling Ouyang², Abdulmohsen Ali Alshehri³, Mohamed S Hamdy⁴, Qingquan Kong¹, Xuping Sun^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610106, China.
² Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 610054, China.
³ Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Catalysis Research Group (CRG), Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Khalid University, P.O. Box 9004, Abha 61413, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong 250014, China.

PMID: 35834395
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c07818

Abstract

Ambient ammonia synthesis by electroreduction of nitrate (NO₃^-) provides us a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to the traditional Haber-Bosch process. In this work, Mn₂CoO₄ nanoarray grown on carbon cloth (Mn₂CoO₄/CC) serves as a superior electrocatalyst for efficient NH₃ synthesis by selective reduction of NO₃^-. When operated in 0.1 M PBS with 0.1 M NaNO₃, Mn₂CoO₄/CC reaches a high Faraday efficiency of 98.6% and a large NH₃ yield up to 11.19 mg/h/cm². Moreover, it exhibits excellent electrocatalytic stability. Theory calculations show that the Mn₂CoO₄ surface has strong interaction with NO₃^-, which can effectively inhibit the occurrence of hydrogen evolution, beneficial for NO₃^--to-NH₃ conversion.

Keywords: Mn2CoO4 nanoarray; ammonia synthesis; electrocatalysis; nitrate reduction reaction; theoretical calculations.