Nitrite reduction over Ag nanoarray electrocatalyst for ammonia synthesis

Electrochemical reduction of nitrite to ammonia can simultaneously achieve ammonia synthesis and N-contaminant removal under mild conditions, which has attracted widespread attention but still lacks efficient catalysts. In this work, Ag nanoarray using NiO nanosheets array on carbon cloth as support is reported as an efficient electrocatalyst to selectively reduce nitrite to ammonia. In 0.1 M NaOH with 0.1 M NO2-, such catalyst exhibits a maximum ammonia yield of 5,751 lg h(-1) cm(-2) (57,510 lg h(-1) mg(Ag)(-1)) and high Faradaic efficiency up to 97.7 %. Density functional theory calculations applied to uncover the catalytic mechanism of NO2- reduction reaction on Ag. (c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, an efficient electrocatalyst consisting of Ag nanoarray and NiO nanosheets array on carbon cloth as support was reported for the selective reduction of nitrite to ammonia. The catalyst exhibited high ammonia yield and Faradaic efficiency in alkaline solution.