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WO 3 Rich in Oxygen Vacancies Through Ion‐Exchange Reaction for Enhanced Electrocatalytic N 2 Reduction to NH 3
Author(s) -
Zhang Junbo,
Jiang Cheng,
Du Yanqiu,
Sheng Lei,
Huang Xianli,
Wang Tao,
He Jianping
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
chemcatchem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.497
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1867-3899
pISSN - 1867-3880
DOI - 10.1002/cctc.202001769
Subject(s) - electrochemistry , oxygen , ion , oxygen evolution , absorption (acoustics) , absorption spectroscopy , yield (engineering) , chemistry , ion exchange , materials science , inorganic chemistry , electrode , physics , quantum mechanics , organic chemistry , composite material , metallurgy
Abstract Electrochemical route is an admirable strategy for N 2 fixation to NH 3 , which can save more energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared with the Haber‐Bosch process. However, it still suffers from extremely low ammonia yield for the lack of effective electrocatalysts and shows low Faraday efficiency due to competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we firstly synthesized needle‐like K 0.33 WO 3.16 (K‐WO 3 ) by molten salt method, then K 0.33 WO 3.16 with surface defect structure (WO 3 ‐OV) was successfully obtained through ion‐exchange of H + and dehydration process. An obvious absorption enhancement in the near infrared region exhibited in UV‐vis absorption spectra and a significant ESR signal at g=2.003 proves the existence of O vacancies. The abundant oxygen vacancies ensure that Faraday efficiency of WO 3 ‐OV gets improved to 25.45 % at −0.3 V (vs RHE), much superior to K‐WO 3 (FE: 9.33 %). It is worth noting that defect‐rich WO 3 ‐OV also shows high electrochemical stability.