Improved nitrogen reduction activity of NbSe2 tuned by edge chirality

Abstract

Efficient catalysts for the electroreduction of N₂ to NH₃ are of paramount importance for sustainable ammonia production. Recently, it was reported that NbSe₂ nanosheets exhibit an excellent catalytic activity for nitrogen reduction under ambient conditions. However, existing theoretical calculations suggested an overpotential over 3.0 V, which is too high to interpret the experimental observations. To reveal the underlying mechanism of the high catalytic activity, in this work, we assessed NbSe₂ edges with different chirality and Se vacancies by using first principles calculations. Our results show that N₂ can be efficiently reduced to NH₃ on a pristine zigzag edge via the enzymatic pathway with an overpotential of 0.45 V. Electronic structure analysis demonstrates that the N₂ molecule is activated by the back-donation mechanism. The efficient tuning of the local chemical environments by edge chirality provides a promising approach for catalyst design.