Issue 12, 2022

Coupling denitrification and ammonia synthesis via selective electrochemical reduction of nitric oxide over Fe2O3 nanorods

Abstract

Direct electrochemical conversion of nitric oxide (NO) into ammonia (NH3) holds great promise for high value-added utilization of industrial gaseous waste and simultaneously mitigating the human-caused imbalance of the global nitrogen cycle. Here, Fe2O3 nanorods are proposed as a superb electrocatalyst for the NO reduction reaction to produce NH3 under ambient conditions. The catalyst achieves a large NH3 yield of 78.02 μmol h−1 cm−2 with a fairly high faradaic efficiency of 86.73% in neutral media. Using such a catalyst as the cathodic material, a Zn–NO battery was assembled as an NH3-producing device with excellent NO conversion efficiency, capable of delivering a power density of 1.18 mW cm−2 and an NH3 yield of 145.28 μg h−1 mgcat.−1. Density functional theory calculations suggest that NO binds to the Fe2O3 (104) surface most strongly via electronic state interaction, adopting a charge “acceptance-donation” mechanism and is significantly activated through the 2π* back-donation effect.

Graphical abstract: Coupling denitrification and ammonia synthesis via selective electrochemical reduction of nitric oxide over Fe2O3 nanorods

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
26 جنؤری 2022
Accepted
24 فرؤری 2022
First published
24 فرؤری 2022

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 6454-6462

Coupling denitrification and ammonia synthesis via selective electrochemical reduction of nitric oxide over Fe2O3 nanorods

J. Liang, H. Chen, T. Mou, L. Zhang, Y. Lin, L. Yue, Y. Luo, Q. Liu, N. Li, A. A. Alshehri, I. Shakir, P. O. Agboola, Y. Wang, B. Tang, D. Ma and X. Sun, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022, 10, 6454 DOI: 10.1039/D2TA00744D

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements