Ambient ammonia synthesis via palladium-catalyzed electrohydrogenation of dinitrogen at low overpotential

Jun Wang, Liang Yu, Lin Hu, Gang Chen, Hongliang Xin () and Xiaofeng Feng ()
Additional contact information
Jun Wang: University of Central Florida
Liang Yu: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Lin Hu: University of Central Florida
Gang Chen: University of Central Florida
Hongliang Xin: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Xiaofeng Feng: University of Central Florida

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Electrochemical reduction of N2 to NH3 provides an alternative to the Haber−Bosch process for sustainable, distributed production of NH3 when powered by renewable electricity. However, the development of such process has been impeded by the lack of efficient electrocatalysts for N2 reduction. Here we report efficient electroreduction of N2 to NH3 on palladium nanoparticles in phosphate buffer solution under ambient conditions, which exhibits high activity and selectivity with an NH3 yield rate of ~4.5 μg mg−1Pd h−1 and a Faradaic efficiency of 8.2% at 0.1 V vs. the reversible hydrogen electrode (corresponding to a low overpotential of 56 mV), outperforming other catalysts including gold and platinum. Density functional theory calculations suggest that the unique activity of palladium originates from its balanced hydrogen evolution activity and the Grotthuss-like hydride transfer mechanism on α-palladium hydride that lowers the free energy barrier of N2 hydrogenation to *N2H, the rate-limiting step for NH3 electrosynthesis.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04213-9 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:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-04213-9

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04213-9

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 ().