Enhancing Green Ammonia Electrosynthesis through Bi–Mo Bimetallic Oxides on Two-Dimensional Ti₃C₂T_x MXene under Ambient Conditions

In this paper, Bi–Mo bimetallic oxides (Bi 2 Mo 3 O 12 ) were successfully grown on two-dimensional (2D) Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene nanosheets by a hydrothermal reaction to form Bi 2 Mo 3 O 12 @Ti 3 C 2 T x composites and used for an electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction. The experimental results show that in a 0.1 M Na 2 SO 4 electrolyte the NH 3 yield rate of Bi 2 Mo 3 O 12 @Ti 3 C 2 T x reaches 78.52 μg –1 mg –1 cat. at −0.7 V vs RHE. This result is much higher than those of Bi 2 Mo 3 O 12 (23.45 μg h –1 mg –1 cat. ) and Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene (16.34 μg h –1 mg –1 cat. ) alone. And the Faraday efficiency (FE) of Bi 2 Mo 3 O 12 @Ti 3 C 2 T x reaches the highest value of 49.38% at −0.55 V vs RHE (Bi 2 Mo 3 O 12, 12.16%; Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene, 9.3%). Meanwhile, the 1 H NMR spectrum of 15 N proves that the N of NH 3 in the experiment comes from the N 2 atmosphere passed during the experiment. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that the reduction pathway of N 2 on Bi 2 Mo 3 O 12 @Ti 3 C 2 T x is dominated by the distal pathway.