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Updated: Oct 25, 2025

Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles Supported on Carbon Nanotube with Doped Co and N Atoms and its Catalytic Applications in Hydrogen Production
Published on: December 6, 2021
Double boron atom-doped graphdiynes as efficient metal-free electrocatalysts for nitrogen reduction into ammonia: a
Cheng Fu1, Yafei Li, Haiyan Wei
1Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biofunctional Materials, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Jiangsu Key Lab for NSLSCS, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China. liyafei@njnu.edu.cn weihaiyan@njnu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
The electroreduction of dinitrogen (N2) is an attractive method for ambient ammonia (NH3) synthesis. In this work, double boron atom-anchored two-dimensional (2D) graphdiyne (GDY-2B) electrocatalysts have been designed and examined for the N2 reduction reaction (NRR) by density functional theory computations. Our calculations revealed that double boron atoms can be strongly embedded in a graphdiyne monolayer. In particular, configuration GDY-2B(S2S2') with two boron atoms substituting two equivalent sp-carbon atoms of diacetylene linkages exhibits excellent catalytic performance for reducing N2, with an extremely low overpotential of 0.12 V. The "pull-pull" mechanism imposed by doped double boron atoms is responsible for the magnificent effect of N2 activation. Besides, the competitive reaction of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is suppressed owing to a large ΔGH* value of -1.25 eV. Based on these results, our study provides useful guidelines for designing effective double atomic catalysts (DACs) based on nonmetal 2D nanosheets for effective electrochemical reduction reactions.
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