Direct fabrication of bi-metallic PdRu nanorod assemblies for electrochemical ammonia synthesis

Electrochemical reduction of N-2 represents a very attractive approach for sustainable NH3 production at environmental temperature and pressure. The design of highly branched Pd-based nanoarchitectonics is very important for the electrocatalytic N-2 reduction reaction (NRR). Herein, we propose a very simple synthetic method for direct fabrication of unique bi-metallic PdRu nanorod assemblies (PdRu NRAs) with high yield in an aqueous solution. Owing to their branched shape together with bi-metallic compositions, the self-supported PdRu NRAs assembled with staggered nanorods show high catalytic activity and superior durability for the NRR. The presented direct synthetic strategy is very valuable for the design of active branched metallic catalysts for the NRR.