In Situ Derived Bi Nanoparticles Confined in Carbon Rods as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Ambient N2 Reduction to NH3

Fengyi Wang; Longcheng Zhang; Ting Wang; Fang Zhang; Qian Liu; Haitao Zhao; Baozhan Zheng; Juan Du; Xuping Sun

doi:10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c01130

In Situ Derived Bi Nanoparticles Confined in Carbon Rods as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Ambient N₂ Reduction to NH₃

Inorg Chem. 2021 May 17;60(10):7584-7589. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c01130. Epub 2021 Apr 30.

Authors

Fengyi Wang^{1

2}, Longcheng Zhang^{1

2}, Ting Wang², Fang Zhang³, Qian Liu², Haitao Zhao⁴, Baozhan Zheng¹, Juan Du¹, Xuping Sun²

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, Sichuan, China.
² Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, Sichuan, China.
³ National Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology, No. 28 East Jiang Chuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China.
⁴ Materials and Interfaces Center, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, China.

PMID: 33929201
DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c01130

Abstract

Electrocatalytic N₂ reduction is deemed as a prospective strategy toward low-carbon and environmentally friendly NH₃ production under mild conditions, but its further application is still plagued by low NH₃ yield and poor faradaic efficiency (FE). Thus, electrocatalysts endowing with high activity and satisfying selectivity are highly needed. Herein, Bi nanoparticles in situ confined in carbon rods (Bi NPs@CRs) are reported, which are fabricated via thermal annealing of a Bi-MOF precursor as a high-efficiency electrocatalyst for artificial NH₃ synthesis with favorable selectivity. Such an electrocatalyst conducted in 0.1 M HCl achieves a high FE of 11.50% and a large NH₃ yield of 20.80 μg h^-1 mg^-1_cat. at -0.55 and -0.60 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, respectively, which also possesses high electrochemical durability.