Surface hydrogen migration significantly promotes electroreduction of acetonitrile to ethylamine

Yulong Tang, Jiejie Li, Yichao Lin (), Moxing Cheng, Shuibo Wang, Ziqi Tian (), Junjie Zhou, Haolei Zhang, Yunan Wang and Liang Chen ()
Additional contact information
Yulong Tang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jiejie Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yichao Lin: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Moxing Cheng: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shuibo Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ziqi Tian: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Junjie Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Haolei Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yunan Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Liang Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The electrochemical reduction of acetonitrile (AN) to ethylamine (EA) is an attractive yet challenging process, primarily due to the competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). This study demonstrates the ability to halt the HER at Volmer step, where protons migrate to the unsaturated bond of AN on a self-supported CuO@Cu heterostructure. The CuO@Cu catalyst exhibits nearly 100% Faradaic efficiency (FE) over the entire range of potentials tested from −0.1 to −0.4 V vs. RHE, demonstrating remarkable stability over 1000 h at a constant current density of 0.2 A cm−2. CuO is identified as the active component driving the reaction, while the metallic Cu facilitates efficient electron transfer. Theoretical simulations and experimental evidences indicate that a synergistic hydrogenation process contributes to the AN reduction reaction (ARR), which involves both surface hydrogen migration and proton addition from solution. This study provides an insight into understanding of ARR process, and suggests an efficient strategy to enhance the electrochemical hydrogenation of organic molecules by regulating the Volmer step.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57462-w 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:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-57462-w

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57462-w

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 ().