journal article·2025-10

Tuning Spin Polarization of Iron in Oxides to Boost Electrocatalytic Ammonia Production

Ning Han, Wei Guo, Lizhou Fan, Yu Yan, Bo Weng, Jianan Erick Huang, Jingjing Wu, Peng‐Yi Tang, Yang Bai, Yu‐Ming Zheng, Shuo Wang, Xuan Zhang, Bao‐Lian Su

Advanced Materials· Volume 37· Issue 41
Publisher page

Abstract

Abstract The electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) for ammonia production has gained attention for its potential to reduce energy consumption and environmental impact. However, effective NRR catalysts currently rely on expensive noble metals, the development of cost‐effective transition metal alternatives remains highly challenging. Iron‐based catalysts are underexplored because of their inherently low reactivity. In this study, it is found that tailoring spin polarization, specifically the occupation state of electronics on d orbital in iron oxides, can highly boost NRR performance with carefully designed spin polarization. Iron in perovskite SrFeO3 with higher spin polarization shows 79 times increase in ammonia yield compared to iron in Fe2O3. This improvement is accompanied with 9 times increase in charge transfer between iron and *NNH, the rate‐determining step of NRR manipulating the spin polarization of transition metals can lead to efficient catalysts for electrochemical NRR, offering valuable insights for enhancing catalyst performance and enabling more sustainable ammonia production.
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Research context

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

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

Affiliations

The Edward S. Rogers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto Toronto Ontario Canada

The Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Microbiology for Materials and the Environment Université de Lorraine, CNRS Nancy 54000 France

State Key Laboratory of Advanced Environmental Technology Institute of Urban Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences 1799 Jimei Road Xiamen 361021 P. R. China

National Key Laboratory of Materials for Integrated Circuits Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 200050 P. R. China

State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment College of Chemistry Fuzhou University Fuzhou 350116 P. R. China

ZJU‐Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Centre Zhejiang University Hangzhou 311200 P. R. China

Laboratory of Inorganic Materials Chemistry (CMI) University of Namur 61 rue de Bruxelles Namur 5000 Belgium

State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing Wuhan University of Technology 122 Luoshi Road Wuhan Hubei 430070 P. R. China

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China

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