Highly Selective Electrochemical Nitrate to Ammonia Conversion by Dispersed Ru in a Multielement Alloy Catalyst.
Meiqi YangBoyang LiShuke LiQi DongZhennan HuangSunxiang ZhengYing FangGuangye ZhouXi ChenXiaobo ZhuTangyuan LiMiaofang ChiGuofeng WangLiangbing HuZhiyong Jason RenPublished in: Nano letters (2023)
Electrochemical reduction of nitrate to ammonia (NH 3 ) converts an environmental pollutant to a critical nutrient. However, current electrochemical nitrate reduction operations based on monometallic and bimetallic catalysts are limited in NH 3 selectivity and catalyst stability, especially in acidic environments. Meanwhile, catalysts with dispersed active sites generally exhibit a higher atomic utilization and distinct activity. Herein, we report a multielement alloy nanoparticle catalyst with dispersed Ru (Ru-MEA) with other synergistic components (Cu, Pd, Pt). Density functional theory elucidated the synergy effect of Ru-MEA than Ru, where a better reactivity (NH 3 partial current density of -50.8 mA cm -2 ) and high NH 3 faradaic efficiency (93.5%) is achieved in industrially relevant acidic wastewater. In addition, the Ru-MEA catalyst showed good stability (e.g., 19.0% decay in FE NH3 in three hours). This work provides a potential systematic and efficient catalyst discovery process that integrates a data-guided catalyst design and novel catalyst synthesis for a range of applications.
Keyphrases
- room temperature
- ionic liquid
- metal organic framework
- highly efficient
- density functional theory
- energy transfer
- nitric oxide
- gold nanoparticles
- reduced graphene oxide
- drinking water
- small molecule
- molecularly imprinted
- carbon dioxide
- molecular dynamics
- visible light
- machine learning
- electronic health record
- high throughput
- drug delivery
- deep learning
- single cell
- cancer therapy
- aqueous solution
- human health