Efficient solar-driven conversion of nitrogen to ammonia in pure water via hydrogenated bismuth oxybromide

Solar-driven reduction of dinitrogen to ammonia under mild conditions has attracted widespread interest in recent years. In this study, we first report low-temperature hydrogenated BiOBr for the direct synthesis of ammonia from dinitrogen with high efficiency under solar-light irradiation. In a proof of concept, the hydrogenation treatment can lead to surface disorder due to the strong reducing capacity of hydrogen. Oxygen atoms can be activated, and they can escape from the surface structure to form oxygen vacancies. Then, defect engineering can broaden the photoelectricity absorption window and effectively trigger interfacial electron transfer from the semiconductor to the combined nitrogen. This method exhibits a satisfactory result for photocatalytic nitrogen fixation, yielding about 2.6 times more NH₃ than that obtained from the original sample. The corresponding apparent quantum efficiency can reach a significant value of 2.1% under 380 nm monochromatic light irradiation. These results may pave a new way for the synthesis of highly active photocatalysts for efficient nitrogen fixation under solar light irradiation.