A Plasmon Resonance Enhanced Photo-Electrode to Promote NH 3 Yield in Sustainable N 2 Conversion.

A key challenge for electrochemical nitrogen reduction reactions (NRR) is the difficulty for conventional catalysts to achieve high currents at low H* coverage to produce appreciable NH 3 . Herein, we specially designed an Au nanoparticle-embedded ZnSe photo-electrode to solve the problem. As-designed photo-electrode achieves excellent NRR performance with a high NH 3 yield (12.2 μg cm -2 h -1 ) and Faradaic efficiency (27.3 %). Our work reveals that the unique plasmon resonance effect of embedded Au nanoparticles plays a key role in increasing catalytic current when the H* coverage is decreased. Moreover, we successfully established a correlation between H* coverage and NRR performance based on theoretical calculations and experimental observations. This work paves the path for the future design of catalytic materials to overcome the selectivity and yield challenge of sustainable NH 3 production.