Enhancing Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction to Ammonia over Cu Nanosheets via Facet Tandem Catalysis

Electrochemical conversion of nitrate (NO3-) into ammonia (NH3) represents a potential way for achieving carbon-free NH3 production while balancing the nitrogen cycle. Herein we report a high-performance Cu nanosheets catalyst which delivers a NH3 partial current density of 665 mA cm(-2) and NH3 yield rate of 1.41 mmol h(-1) cm(-2) in a flow cell at -0.59 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode. The catalyst showed a high stability for 700 h with NH3 Faradaic efficiency of approximate to 88 % at 365 mA cm(-2). In situ spectroscopy results verify that Cu nanosheets are in situ derived from the as-prepared CuO nanosheets under electrochemical NO3- reduction reaction conditions. Electrochemical measurements and density functional theory calculations indicate that the high performance is attributed to the tandem interaction of Cu(100) and Cu(111) facets. The NO2- generated on the Cu(100) facets is subsequently hydrogenated on the Cu(111) facets, thus the tandem catalysis promotes the crucial hydrogenation of *NO to *NOH for NH3 production.

Automated summary

This study reports a high-performance Cu nanosheets catalyst that achieves a NH3 partial current density of 665 mA cm(-2) and NH3 yield rate of 1.41 mmol h(-1) cm(-2) in a flow cell at -0.59 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode. The catalyst demonstrates a high stability for 700 h with an NH3 Faradaic efficiency of approximately 88% at 365 mA cm(-2). The high performance is attributed to the tandem interaction of Cu(100) and Cu(111) facets, promoting the crucial hydrogenation of *NO to *NOH for NH3 production.