Ni nanoparticle-decorated biomass carbon for efficient electrocatalytic nitrite reduction to ammonia

Xiuhong Li; Zerong Li; Longcheng Zhang; Donglin Zhao; Jun Li; Shengjun Sun; Lisi Xie; Qian Liu; Abdulmohsen Ali Alshehri; Yonglan Luo; Yunwen Liao; Qingquan Kong; Xuping Sun

doi:10.1039/d2nr03540e

Ni nanoparticle-decorated biomass carbon for efficient electrocatalytic nitrite reduction to ammonia

Nanoscale. 2022 Sep 22;14(36):13073-13077. doi: 10.1039/d2nr03540e.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Chemical Synthesis and Pollution Control Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, China West Normal University, Nanchong 637002, Sichuan, China. liao-yw@163.com.
² Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, Sichuan, China. xpsun@uestc.edu.cn.
³ Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, Sichuan, China. kongqingquan@cdu.edu.cn.
⁴ Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.

PMID: 36069959
DOI: 10.1039/d2nr03540e

Abstract

Electrocatalytic nitrite (NO₂^-) reduction to ammonia (NH₃) can not only synthesize value-added NH₃, but also remove NO₂^- pollutants from the environment. However, the low efficiency of NO₂^--to-NH₃ conversion hinders its applications. Here, Ni nanoparticle-decorated juncus-derived biomass carbon prepared at 800 °C (Ni@JBC-800) serves as an efficient catalyst for NH₃ synthesis by selective electroreduction of NO₂^-. This catalyst shows a remarkable NH₃ yield of 4117.3 μg h^-1 mg_cat.^-1 and a large faradaic efficiency of 83.4% in an alkaline electrolyte. The catalytic mechanism is further investigated by theoretical calculations.