Plasma-etched Ti2O3 with oxygen vacancies for enhanced NH3 electrosynthesis and Zn-N2 batteries

The sustainable production of NH3 through an ambient electrocatalytic N-2 reduction reaction (NRR) requires the ingenious design of efficient electrocatalysts. Herein, plasma-etched Ti2O3 with oxygen vacancies (OV-Ti2O3) is reported as an active and stable electrocatalyst for NRR. The resulting OV-Ti2O3 catalyst exhibits outstanding N-2 fixation performances in 0.1 M HCl with the maximum NH3 yield and faradaic efficiency of up to 37.24 mu g h(-1) mg(cat.)(-1) and 19.29%, respectively. Additionally, a rechargeable aqueous Zn-N-2 battery with an OV-Ti2O3 cathode was assembled to deliver a power density of 1.02 mW cm(-2) and an NH3 yield of 4.3 mu g h(-1) mg(cat.)(-1), outperforming reported Zn-N-2 batteries.

Automated summary

In this study, a novel electrocatalyst, OV-Ti2O3, was reported for sustainable NH3 production. OV-Ti2O3 exhibited outstanding N-2 fixation performance in experiments and showed excellent performance in the assembled Zn-N-2 battery.