Interfacial Reduction Nucleation of Noble Metal Nanodots on Redox-Active Metal-Organic Frameworks for High-Efficiency Electrocatalytic Conversion of Nitrate to Ammonia

Electrochemically converting nitrate to ammonia is a promising route to realize artificial nitrogen recycling. However, developing highly efficient electrocatalysts is an ongoing challenge. Herein, we report the construction of stable and redox-active zirconium metal-organic frameworks (Zr-MOFs) based on Zr-6 nanoclusters and redox-reversible tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) derivatives as inorganic nodes and organic linkers, respectively. The redox-active Zr-MOF can facilitate the in situ reduction of noble metal precursors free of external reductants and realize the uniform nucleation of noble metal nanodots (NDs) on Zr-MOF, achieving the preparation of M-NDs/Zr-MOF (M = Pd, Ag, or Au). The highly porous Zr-MOF with good conductivity can facilitate the mass transfer process. Among the M-NDs/Zr-MOF catalysts, PdNDs/Zr-MOF exhibits the highest electrocatalytic activity, delivering a NH3 yield of 287.31 mmol center dot h(-1)center dot g(-1)cat. and a Faradaic efficiency of 58.1%. The proposed interfacial reduction nucleation strategy for anchoring M NDs on Zr-MOFs can be applied to other challenging energy conversion reactions.

Automated summary

This study reports the construction of stable and redox-active zirconium metal-organic frameworks (Zr-MOFs) for electrochemically converting nitrate to ammonia. By utilizing the Zr-MOFs as catalysts, noble metal nanodots could be uniformly nucleated, leading to highly efficient electrocatalytic activity. The PdNDs/Zr-MOF catalyst exhibits the highest electrocatalytic activity.