A Defect Engineered Electrocatalyst that Promotes High-Efficiency Urea Synthesis under Ambient Conditions.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Sustainable Chemistry

Background:

• Electrocatalytic urea synthesis from CO2 offers a sustainable alternative to traditional methods.
• Developing highly efficient electrocatalysts remains a significant challenge for this process.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report a novel, high-efficiency electrocatalyst for urea synthesis.
• To investigate the mechanism of electrocatalytic urea formation and identify rate-limiting steps.

Main Methods:

• Synthesis of indium oxyhydroxide with engineered oxygen vacancy defects.
• Electrochemical characterization and operando synchrotron radiation-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.
• Computational studies to elucidate the reaction mechanism.

Main Results:

• Indium oxyhydroxide with oxygen vacancy defects demonstrated high electrocatalytic urea synthesis activity.
• The *CO2NH2 protonation step was identified as the potential-determining step.
• The defect-engineered catalyst achieved a Faradaic efficiency of 51.0% for urea synthesis.

Conclusions:

• Defect engineering of indium oxyhydroxide enhances electrocatalytic urea synthesis.
• The findings provide insights into catalyst design for electrochemical urea production.
• This strategy can advance sustainable synthesis applications.