Interfacial Microextraction Boosting Nitrogen Feed for Efficient Ambient Ammonia Synthesis in Aqueous Electrolyte

The extremely low nitrogen (N-2) solubility in aqueous solution greatly limits the gas reactant supply to catalysts resulting in a bottleneck in establishing efficient electrocatalytic N-2 reduction reaction (NRR). Here, aiming at fairly few N-2 dissolving in aqueous electrolyte, an N-2-microextractor (NME) that can extract the N-2 from water, then feed it to catalysts on electrodes, is reported. The NME consists of polymer framework and extractant that possess high solubility for N-2, which serves as an ultra-thin interfacial system wrapping around electrodes. As expected, the enhancement of N-2 supply in NRR leads to a record-high Faradaic efficiency (80.1%) with an ammonia yield rate of 58.3 mu g h(-1) mg(-1) under ambient conditions. This is of great significance to a sustainable Ammonia Economy.

Automated summary

This study reports an N-2 microextractor (NME) that can extract N-2 from water and supply it to catalysts on electrodes. By enhancing the supply of N-2 in the NRR process, the NME achieves efficient electrocatalytic N-2 reduction, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of the Ammonia Economy.