Premium
BN Pairs Enriched Defective Carbon Nanosheets for Ammonia Synthesis with High Efficiency
Author(s) -
Chen Chen,
Yan Dafeng,
Wang Yu,
Zhou Yangyang,
Zou Yuqin,
Li Yafei,
Wang Shuangyin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201805029
Subject(s) - faraday efficiency , catalysis , ammonia , reversible hydrogen electrode , pyrolysis , materials science , electrochemistry , carbon fibers , noble metal , hydrogen , ammonia production , chemical engineering , metal , inorganic chemistry , nitrogen , water splitting , transition metal , electrode , chemistry , organic chemistry , composite number , working electrode , photocatalysis , metallurgy , composite material , engineering
Electrochemical synthesis has garnered attention as a promising alternative to the traditional Haber–Bosch process to enable the generation of ammonia (NH 3 ) under ambient conditions. Current electrocatalysts for the nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) to produce NH 3 are comprised of noble metals or transitional metals. Here, an efficient metal‐free catalyst (BCN) is demonstrated without precious component and can be easily fabricated by pyrolysis of organic precursor. Both theoretical calculations and experiments confirm that the doped BN pairs are the active triggers and the edge carbon atoms near to BN pairs are the active sites toward the NRR. This doping strategy can provide sufficient active sites while retarding the competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) process; thus, NRR with high NH 3 formation rate (7.75 µg h −1 mg cat. −1 ) and excellent Faradaic efficiency (13.79%) are achieved at −0.3 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), exceeding the performance of most of the metallic catalysts.