Ambient Ammonia Synthesis via Electrochemical Reduction of Nitrate Enabled by NiCo2O4 Nanowire Array

Authors: Qian Liu, Lisi Xie, Jie Liang, Yuchun Ren, Yuanyuan Wang, Longcheng Zhang, Luchao Yue, Tingshuai Li, Yongsong Luo, Na Li, Bo Tang, Yang Liu, Shuyan Gao, Abdulmohsen Ali Alshehri, Imran Shakir, Philips O. Agboola, Qingquan Kong, Qingyuan Wang, Dongwei Ma, Xuping Sun - Small 2022 cited by 279

Abstract NiCo 2 O 4 nanowire array on carbon cloth (NiCo 2 O 4 /CC) is proposed as a highly active electrocatalyst for ambient nitrate (NO 3 − ) reduction to ammonia (NH 3 ). In 0.1 m NaOH solution with 0.1 m NaNO 3 , such NiCo 2 O 4 /CC achieves a high Faradic efficiency of 99.0% and a large NH 3 yield up to 973.2 µmol h −1 cm −2 . The superior catalytic activity of NiCo 2 O 4 comes from its half‐metal feature and optimized adsorption energy due to the existence of Ni in the crystal structure. A Zn‐NO 3 − battery with NiCo 2 O 4 /CC cathode also shows a record‐high battery performance.