Fabrication of an Au 25 -Cys-Mo Electrocatalyst for Efficient Nitrogen Reduction to Ammonia under Ambient Conditions

• Published in: Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Germany), 2021-05, Vol.17 (21), p.e2100372
• Main Authors: Tan, Yuan, Yan, Lei, Huang, Chuanqi, Zhang, Wenna, Qi, Haifeng, Kang, Leilei, Pan, Xiaoli, Zhong, Yijun, Hu, Yong, Ding, Yunjie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1613-6810; 1613-6829
• DOI: 10.1002/smll.202100372

Electrocatalysts for efficient production of ammonia from nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) under ambient conditions are attracted growing interest in recent years, which demonstrate a great potential to replace the Haber-Bosch method which suffers the problems of the huge energy consumption and massive CO production. In this work, a novel electrocatalyst of Au -Cys-M is fabricated for NRR under ambient conditions, with transition metal ions (e.g., Mo , Fe , Co , Ni ) atomically decorated on Au nanoclusters via thiol bridging. The Au -Cys-Mo catalyst exhibits the highest Faradaic efficiency (26.5%) and NH yield (34.5 µg h  mg ) in 0.1 m HCl solution. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis and high angle annular dark field image-scanning transmission electron microscopy characterization reveal that the electronic structure of Mo is optimized by forming the structure of Au-S-Mo and Mo acts as active sites for activating the nitrogen to promote the electrochemical production of ammonia. This work provides a new insight into the precise fabrication of efficient NRR electrocatalysts.