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Research Article

Enhanced N2-to-NH3 conversion efficiency on Cu3P nanoribbon electrocatalyst

Qian Liu1, Yiting Lin2, Shuang Gu3, Ziqiang Cheng3, Lisi Xie1, Shengjun Sun2, Longcheng Zhang2, Yongsong Luo2, Abdulmohsen Ali Alshehri4, Mohamed S. Hamdy5, Qingquan Kong1, Jiahong Wang3( ), Xuping Sun2 ( )
Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China
Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China
Shenzhen Engineering Center for the Fabrication of Two-Dimensional Atomic Crystals, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science & Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials Research, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Catalysis Research Group (CRG), Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Khalid University, P.O. Box 9004, Abha 61413, Saudi Arabia
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Graphical Abstract

Cu3P nanoribbon is an effective and stable nitrogen reduction electrocatalyst, achieving high-efficiency for ammonia synthesis with an excellent Faraday efficiency up to 37.8% and a high ammonia yield of 18.9 µg·h−1·mgcat.−1.

Abstract

Ambient electroreduction of nitrogen (N2) is considered as a green and feasible approach for ammonia (NH3) synthesis, which urgently demands for efficient electrocatalyst. Morphology has close relationship with catalytic activity of heterogeneous catalysts. Nanoribbon is attractive nanostructure, which possesses the flexibility of one-dimensional nanomaterials, the large surface area of two-dimensional nanomaterials, and lateral size confinement effects. In this work, Cu3P nanoribbon is proposed as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for N2-to-NH3 conversion under benign conditions. When measured in N2-saturated 0.1 M HCl, such Cu3P nanoribbon achieves high performance with an excellent Faradaic efficiency as high as 37.8% and a large yield of 18.9 µg·h−1·mgcat.−1 at −0.2 V. It also demonstrates outstanding stability in long-term electrolysis test at least for 45 h.

Keywords

Cu3P nanoribbon nitrogen reduction reactionammonia electrosynthesiselectrocatalysis

Electronic Supplementary Material

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12274_2022_4568_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (1.1 MB)

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Nano Research
Volume 15 Issue 8,
August 2022
Pages 7134-7138
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-022-4568-z
Cite this article:
Liu Q, Lin Y, Gu S, et al. Enhanced N2-to-NH3 conversion efficiency on Cu3P nanoribbon electrocatalyst. Nano Research, 2022, 15(8): 7134-7138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4568-z
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Received: 06 April 2022
Revised: 04 May 2022
Accepted: 21 May 2022
Published: 18 June 2022
© Tsinghua University Press 2022
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