Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 6, 2025

Electrochemically and Bioelectrochemically Induced Ammonium Recovery
Published on: January 22, 2015
A Plasmon Resonance Enhanced Photo-Electrode to Promote NH3 Yield in Sustainable N2 Conversion
Haonan Wang1, Chuanqi Cheng1, Kun Du1
1Key Laboratory for Advanced Ceramics and, Machining Technology of Ministry of Education, Institute of New-Energy, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, P. R. China.
Abstract:
A key challenge for electrochemical nitrogen reduction reactions (NRR) is the difficulty for conventional catalysts to achieve high currents at low H* coverage to produce appreciable NH3 . Herein, we specially designed an Au nanoparticle-embedded ZnSe photo-electrode to solve the problem. As-designed photo-electrode achieves excellent NRR performance with a high NH3 yield (12.2 μg cm-2 h-1 ) and Faradaic efficiency (27.3 %). Our work reveals that the unique plasmon resonance effect of embedded Au nanoparticles plays a key role in increasing catalytic current when the H* coverage is decreased. Moreover, we successfully established a correlation between H* coverage and NRR performance based on theoretical calculations and experimental observations. This work paves the path for the future design of catalytic materials to overcome the selectivity and yield challenge of sustainable NH3 production.
Related Concept Videos
Inorganic Nitrogen Assimilation
Overview of Nitrogen Metabolism
The largest pool of nitrogen available in the terrestrial ecosystem is gaseous nitrogen (N2) from the air, but this...
The Z-Scheme of Electron Transport in Photosynthesis
Metabolism of Chemolithotrophs

