journal article·2025-07

A Cu‐Cu2O/Ni2P Heterostructure for Efficient Tandem Catalysis of Electrosynthesis of Ammonia from Nitrate Reduction Reaction in Neutral Medium

Huilin Zhao, Pengfei Liu, Xuetao Cheng, Chao Fan, Jian Liu, Dongxiao Kan, Yan‐Qin Wang

Advanced Functional Materials· Volume 35· Issue 27
Publisher page

Abstract

Abstract Electrochemical nitrate reduction to ammonia (eNO3RR) in neutral conditions is an effective and sustainable method for ammonia production while treating nitrate pollution. Nevertheless, it still faces a great challenge due to the complicated multiple proton‐coupled‐electron process in eNO3RR. Herein, an efficient heterostructure electrocatalyst Cu‐Cu2O/Ni2P has been successfully fabricated for neutral ammonia electrosynthesis from nitrate reduction. Cu‐Cu2O/Ni2P exhibits outstanding eNO3RR performance with a Faradaic efficiency (FE) as high as 96.4% and ammonia yield rate of 14636 µg·h−1·cm−2 at −1.0 V (vs RHE) in 0.1 m PBS solution, which outperforms most of the reported eNO3RR electrocatalysts in neutral media. More importantly, the catalyst demonstrates an exceptional stability for 30 consecutive electrolysis cycles and outstanding durability even at large current density of 440 mA cm−2 in a flow cell. The tandem catalysis mechanism of NO3− → NO2− → NH3 by the synergism of two components of Cu‐Cu2O and Ni2P in Cu‐Cu2O/Ni2P is verified by the experimental and theoretical calculations. Cu‐Cu2O has strong adsorption capacity for NO3− and which can be reduced into NO2−, while Ni2P can facilitate the water splitting, which promotes the abundant *H production, thus boosting the subsequent hydrogenation process during eNO3RR process whilst inhibiting the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER).
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction · Caching and Content Delivery · Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Catalysis College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Inner Mongolia University Hohhot 010021 P. R. China

Northwest Institute for Non‐ferrous Metal Research Xi'an 710016 P. R. China

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China

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