Ambient ammonia production via electrocatalytic nitrite reduction over MoO2 nanoparticles self-supported on molybdenum plate.

Electrocatalytic reduction of nitrite (NO 2 –) is an environmentally friendly method for ambient ammonia (NH 3) production, and the development of high–efficiency electrocatalysts is in urgent demand. Herein, we demonstrated that MoO 2 nanoparticles self–supported on a molybdenum plate (MoO 2 /MP) could act as an excellent catalyst for the conversion of NO 2 – to NH 3. The optimized catalyst can achieve an impressive NH 3 yield of 8678.4 ± 187.4 μg h–1 cm–2 with high Faradaic efficiency of 94.5 ± 0.2 % at −0.8 V in the solution of 0.5 M Na 2 SO 4 and 0.1 M NO 2 –, along with preferable durability. Additionally, density functional theory calculation reveals that the MoO 2 (1 ¯ 11) surface has a high activity for NO 2 – reduction, with 0.38 eV as the potential determining step (*NO 2 to NO 2 H), as well as severe suppress hydrogen evolution. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]