Sequential co-reduction of nitrate and carbon dioxide enables selective urea electrosynthesis

Yang Li, Shisheng Zheng, Hao Liu, Qi Xiong, Haocong Yi, Haibin Yang, Zongwei Mei, Qinghe Zhao, Zu-Wei Yin, Ming Huang (), Yuan Lin, Weihong Lai, Shi-Xue Dou, Feng Pan and Shunning Li ()
Additional contact information
Yang Li: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Shisheng Zheng: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Hao Liu: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Qi Xiong: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Haocong Yi: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Haibin Yang: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Zongwei Mei: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Qinghe Zhao: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Zu-Wei Yin: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Ming Huang: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Yuan Lin: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Weihong Lai: University of Wollongong
Shi-Xue Dou: University of Wollongong
Feng Pan: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School
Shunning Li: Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Despite the recent achievements in urea electrosynthesis from co-reduction of nitrogen wastes (such as NO3−) and CO2, the product selectivity remains fairly mediocre due to the competing nature of the two parallel reduction reactions. Here we report a catalyst design that affords high selectivity to urea by sequentially reducing NO3− and CO2 at a dynamic catalytic centre, which not only alleviates the competition issue but also facilitates C−N coupling. We exemplify this strategy on a nitrogen-doped carbon catalyst, where a spontaneous switch between NO3− and CO2 reduction paths is enabled by reversible hydrogenation on the nitrogen functional groups. A high urea yield rate of 596.1 µg mg−1 h−1 with a promising Faradaic efficiency of 62% is obtained. These findings, rationalized by in situ spectroscopic techniques and theoretical calculations, are rooted in the proton-involved dynamic catalyst evolution that mitigates overwhelming reduction of reactants and thereby minimizes the formation of side products.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44131-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-44131-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44131-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().