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Communication

Efficient ammonia production over eg-occupancy-optimized perovskite electrocatalysts

Mingfa Chen1Yu Zhang2Fulong Liu1Zhenbao Zhang3Yuming Dong1( )Yongfa Zhu4Heqing Jiang2( )Jiawei Zhu1,2( )
Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266101, China
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Linyi University, Linyi 276005, China
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
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Graphical Abstract

A semiempirical activity descriptor of eg occupancy (of surface B-site cations) is reported for identifying inexpensive perovskite oxides with extremely high efficacy toward nitrate electroreduction to ammonia (NERA). Utilizing this descriptor, a highly active, selective, and durable NERA electrocatalyst with a composition of Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3−δ (BSCF) is predicted. The BSCF substantially outperforms most NERA electrocatalysts reported in literature.

Abstract

Renewable-energy-driven nitrate (NO3) electroreduction to ammonia (NH3) (NERA) has been an attractive technology for decarbonizing NH3 production and wastewater treatment. Improving NERA efficiency requires electrocatalysts that are earth-abundant and show fantastic performance. Here we report a semiempirical activity descriptor of eg occupancy (of surface B-site cations) for identifying inexpensive perovskite oxides with extremely high efficacy toward NERA. We establish the descriptor by systematic investigations of more than 10 perovskite oxides. These investigations demonstrate that their intrinsic NERA activities display a volcano-shaped dependence on eg occupancy and the optimized intrinsic activities are accessible at near-1 eg occupancies. This could plausibly be attributed to the favorable overlaps between surface adsorbates and vertically-oriented eg orbitals. More importantly, utilizing this descriptor, we predict a highly active, selective, and durable NERA electrocatalyst with a composition of Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3−δ (BSCF). Because of its close-to-1 eg occupancy (i.e. ~ 1.2), the BSCF features a superior NH3 production rate of 0.12 g·h−1·mgcat.−1 (Faradaic efficiency of 97.8%) that is at top of the volcano plot, and substantially outperforms most NERA electrocatalysts reported in literature.

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Nano Research
Pages 4682-4686
Cite this article:
Chen M, Zhang Y, Liu F, et al. Efficient ammonia production over eg-occupancy-optimized perovskite electrocatalysts. Nano Research, 2024, 17(6): 4682-4686. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-024-6543-3
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Received: 20 December 2023
Revised: 31 January 2024
Accepted: 02 February 2024
Published: 07 March 2024
© Tsinghua University Press 2024
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