Recent Advances in the Application of Transition Metal-Based Catalysts in Electrocatalytic Ammonia Synthesis and C-N Bond Formation

Abstract

Electrocatalytic C-N coupling technology uses pollutants, such as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), nitrate (NO 3 -), nitrite (NO 2 -) to synthesize valuable organic nitrogen compounds (e.g., urea, amides, amines, etc.). This technology achieves resource utilization and synergistic remediation of the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Despite the challenges of low Faraday efficiency (FE) and poor selectivity, transition metal-based catalysts have significant advantages in lowering reaction barriers, promoting C-N bond formation, and inhibiting side reactions. This is due to their tunable electronic structures and abundant active sites. Recently, a significant breakthrough was made in transition metal-catalyzed C-N coupling under ambient conditions. This development opens a new pathway for efficiently and sustainably synthesizing nitrogen-containing molecules using renewable electricity. In this review, we systematically describe the electrocatalytic C-N coupling reaction using nitrogen (N 2 ), NO 2 -, and NO 3 -as the nitrogen source, focusing on the mechanism of the transition-metal catalytic system and its practical applications. Future research should focus on solving key problems, such as the complexity of the reaction mechanism and catalyst stability, while also focusing on developing high-performance catalysts and in-depth analyzing the reaction mechanism.