Highly boosted gas diffusion for enhanced electrocatalytic reduction of N2 to NH3 on 3D hollow Co-MoS2 nanostructures

Libin Zeng; Xinyong Li; Shuai Chen; Jiali Wen; Farnood Rahmati; Joshua van der Zalm; Aicheng Chen

doi:10.1039/c9nr09624h

Highly boosted gas diffusion for enhanced electrocatalytic reduction of N₂ to NH₃ on 3D hollow Co-MoS₂ nanostructures

Nanoscale. 2020 Mar 14;12(10):6029-6036. doi: 10.1039/c9nr09624h. Epub 2020 Mar 3.

Authors

Libin Zeng¹, Xinyong Li, Shuai Chen, Jiali Wen, Farnood Rahmati, Joshua van der Zalm, Aicheng Chen

Affiliation

¹ Electrochemical Technology Center, Department of Chemistry, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada. aicheng@uoguelph.ca.

PMID: 32125326
DOI: 10.1039/c9nr09624h

Abstract

Transition metal chalcogenide MoS₂ catalysts are highly selective for the electrochemical reduction of dinitrogen (N₂) to ammonia (NH₃) in aqueous electrolytes. However, due to the low solubility of N₂ in water, limited N₂ diffusion and mass transport have heavily restricted the yield and the faradaic efficiency (FE). Here, we have demonstrated a highly efficacious assembled gas diffusion cathode with hollow Co-MoS₂/N@C nanostructures to significantly improve the electrochemical reduction of N₂ to NH₃. Our results revealed that the synthesized Co-MoS₂ heterojunctions with abundant graphitic N groups exhibited a superb NH₃ yield of 129.93 μg h^-1 mg_cat^-1 and a high faradaic efficiency of 11.21% at -0.4 V vs. the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), as well as excellent selectivity and stability. The strategy described in this study offers new inspiration to design high-performance electrocatalyst assemblies for the sustainable environmental and energy applications.