Efficient Electrocatalytic Nitrogen Reduction to Ammonia on Ultrafine Sn Nanoparticles

Zhihui Xue; Changning Sun; Ming Zhao; Yuhuan Cui; Yanbin Qu; Haibin Ma; Zhili Wang; Qing Jiang

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c15324

Efficient Electrocatalytic Nitrogen Reduction to Ammonia on Ultrafine Sn Nanoparticles

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Dec 22;13(50):59834-59842. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c15324. Epub 2021 Dec 13.

Authors

Zhihui Xue¹, Changning Sun¹, Ming Zhao¹, Yuhuan Cui¹, Yanbin Qu¹, Haibin Ma¹, Zhili Wang¹, Qing Jiang¹

Affiliation

¹ Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of Education, and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China.

PMID: 34894652
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c15324

Abstract

Electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) at ambient conditions is a promising route for ammonia (NH₃) synthesis but still suffers from low activity and selectivity. Here, ultrafine Sn nanoparticles (NPs) grown on carbon blacks (Sn_SC/C) have been synthesized through a wet-chemical method using sodium citrate dehydrate as a stabilizing agent. Benefiting from the small sizes of Sn NPs, the Sn_SC/C catalyst exhibits excellent electrocatalytic performance for NRR with a high Faradaic efficiency of 22.76% and an NH₃ yield rate of 17.28 μg h^-1 mg^-1 in the 0.1 M Na₂SO₄ electrolyte, outperforming many reported electrocatalysts for NRR under similar conditions. Density functional theory calculation results reveal that the potential-determining step on Sn NPs is the generation of NHNH* through simultaneous hydrogenation of N₂^* by a H* and a H⁺/e^- pair via Langmuir-Hinshelwood plus Eley-Rideal mechanisms.

Keywords: N2 fixation; Sn nanoparticles; ammonia synthesis; nitrogen reduction reaction; non-noble metal catalyst.