B-doped MoS2 for nitrate electroreduction to ammonia

Yaojing Luo; Kai Chen; Peng Shen; Xingchuan Li; Xiaotian Li; Yunhe Li; Ke Chu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.09.049

B-doped MoS₂ for nitrate electroreduction to ammonia

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jan;629(Pt A):950-957. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.09.049. Epub 2022 Sep 13.

Authors

Yaojing Luo¹, Kai Chen¹, Peng Shen¹, Xingchuan Li¹, Xiaotian Li¹, Yunhe Li¹, Ke Chu²

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China. Electronic address: chuk630@mail.lzjtu.cn.

PMID: 36152619
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.09.049

Abstract

Electrocatalytic nitrate-to-ammonia conversion (NO₃RR) is a promising route to achieve both NH₃ electrosynthesis and wastewater treatment. Herein, we report B-doped MoS₂ nanosheet arrays as an efficient NO₃RR catalyst, delivering an NH₃-Faradaic efficiency of 92.3 % with the corresponding NH₃ yield of 10.8 mg h^-1 cm^-2 at -0.7 V (RHE). Theoretical computations identify B-dopants as the pivotal active sites to enhance NO₃^- activation and optimize the free energies of reaction intermediates, leading to the expedited NO₃RR activity. Meanwhile, the undesired hydrogen evolution can be well suppressed on B-MoS₂ to render a high NO₃RR selectivity.

Keywords: Electrochemical nitrate reduction; Heteroatom doping; MoS(2) catalysts; Theoretical computations.