In Situ Growth of Fe 2 O 3 Nanorod Arrays on Carbon Cloth with Rapid Charge Transfer for Efficient Nitrate Electroreduction to Ammonia

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces 2022-11, Vol.14 (44), p.49765-49773
• Main Authors: Li, Tingsong, Tang, Chun, Guo, Heng, Wu, Haoran, Duan, Chao, Wang, Hao, Zhang, Fengying, Cao, Yuehan, Yang, Guidong, Zhou, Ying
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c14215

Electrochemical reduction of nitrate to ammonia (NH ), a green NH production route upon combining with renewable energy sources, is an appealing and alternative method to the Haber-Bosch process. However, this process not only involves the complicated eight-electron reduction to transform nitrate into various nitrogen products but simultaneously suffers from the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction, challenged by a lack of efficient catalysts. Herein, the growth of Fe O nanorod arrays on carbon cloth (Fe O NRs/CC) is reported to exhibit a high NH yield rate of 328.17 μmol h cm at -0.9 V versus RHE, outperforming most of the reported Fe catalysts. An growth strategy provides massive exposed active sites and a fast electron-transport channel between the carbon cloth and Fe O , which accelerates the charge-transport rate and facilitates the conversion of nitrate to NH . Raman spectroscopy in conjunction with attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy reveals the catalytic mechanism of nitrate to NH . Our study provides not only an efficient catalyst for NH production but also useful guidelines for the pathways and mechanism of nitrate electroreduction to NH .