Efficient nitric oxide electroreduction toward ambient ammonia synthesis catalyzed by a CoP nanoarray

The ever-increasing anthropic NO emission from fossil fuel combustion has resulted in a series of severe environmental issues. Ambient electrocatalytic NO reduction has emerged as a promising route for sustainable NO abatement and energy-saving NH3 synthesis, but it is kinetically complex and energetically challenging, thus requiring electrocatalysts with high activity and selectivity. Herein, we demonstrate the direct use of a CoP nanowire array on Ti mesh (CoP/TM) as an efficient hydroprocessing catalyst for electrochemically converting NO to NH3. This monolithic catalyst achieves a faradaic efficiency of 88.3% and an NH3 yield of 47.22 mu mol h(-1) cm(-2), much superior to its Co(OH)F counterpart (30.3%, 4.21 mu mol h(-1) cm(-2)). Significantly, it exhibits high durability and negligible activity decay for 14 h bulk electrolysis. The excellent electrocatalytic NO reduction activity of our CoP/TM is demonstrated further by using it as a Zn-NO battery cathode catalyst. Theoretical calculations reveal the catalytic mechanisms.

Automated summary

The ever-increasing anthropic NO emission has caused severe environmental issues. Electrochemical reduction of NO has emerged as a promising approach for sustainable NO abatement and NH3 synthesis, but requires highly active and selective electrocatalysts. In this study, a CoP nanowire array on Ti mesh was used as an efficient catalyst for converting NO to NH3. This catalyst demonstrated excellent activity, selectivity, durability, and was also used as a cathode catalyst for a Zn-NO battery.