H2O2 Mediated Photoreduction of Nitrates to Ammonia by Iron Filings under Ambient Conditions

Anjali Kumari Garg; Vishrant Kumar; Rohit; Deepika Saini; Sumit Kumar Sonkar

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c03039

H₂O₂ Mediated Photoreduction of Nitrates to Ammonia by Iron Filings under Ambient Conditions

J Phys Chem Lett. 2025 Jan 17:876-881. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c03039. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Anjali Kumari Garg¹, Vishrant Kumar^{1

2}, Rohit¹, Deepika Saini¹, Sumit Kumar Sonkar¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, Jaipur 302017, India.
² Department of Molecular Catalysis, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, 45470 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany.

PMID: 39824614
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c03039

Abstract

Herein, a simple ambient conditioned sunlight promoted photochemical reduction reaction is demonstrated for the of nitrate (NO₃^-) conversion to ammonia (NH₃) with the maximum conversion yield of ∼16 mM using iron filings (f-Fe) in the presence of H₂O₂. Based on a radical scavenging study of reactive species and the characterization of catalyst f-Fe before and after the reaction, a plausible mechanism has been proposed for the ambient conditioned synthesis of NH₃. The results associated with the NH₃ synthesis have been verified using the ¹⁵N isotopic labeled nitrate (¹⁵NO₃^-), which supports the simpler viability of the reported procedure.