Boron Nanosheet: An Elemental Two-Dimensional (2D) Material for Ambient Electrocatalytic N₂-to-NH₃ Fixation in Neutral Media

Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2019 papers

Abstract

The Haber–Bosch process for industrial NH3 production suffers from harsh reaction conditions and serious CO2 emission. Electrochemical N2 reduction offers a carbon-neutral alternative for more energy-saving NH3 synthesis but requires active electrocatalysts for the N2 reduction reaction (NRR). In this Letter, boron nanosheet (BNS) is proposed as an elemental two-dimensional (2D) material to effectively catalyze the NRR toward NH3 synthesis with excellent selectivity. When tested in 0.1 M Na2SO4, such BNS catalyst attains a high Faradaic efficiency of 4.04% and a large NH3 yield of 13.22 μg h–1 mgcat–1 at −0.80 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode, with strong electrochemical durability. Density functional theory calculations suggest that the B atoms of both oxidized and H-deactivated BNS can catalyze the NRR more effectively than clean BNS, and the rate-determining step is the desorption process of the second NH3 gas.

Related Papers

• → Synergistic Catalysis over Iron‐Nitrogen Sites Anchored with Cobalt Phthalocyanine for Efficient CO₂ Electroreduction(2019)349 cited
• → Highly dispersed CuFe-nitrogen active sites electrode for synergistic electrochemical CO2 reduction at low overpotential(2020)60 cited
• → Lysine‐Functionalized SnO₂ for Efficient CO₂ Electroreduction into Formate(2022)6 cited
• → Electroreduction of CO₂ at Cu and Sn Foams(2014)
• → Modeling the Coulombic Efficiency of the Aqueous Iron Electrode(2023)