Photochemical Acceleration of Ammonia Production by Pt
Chengliang Mao1,2, Jiaxian Wang3, Yunjie Zou1
1Key Laboratory of Pesticide & Chemical Biology of Ministry of Education, Institute of Environmental & Applied Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Stable metal nitrides (MN) are promising materials to fit the future "green" ammonia-hydrogen nexus. Either through catalysis or chemical looping, the reductive hydrogenation of MN to MN1-x is a necessary step to generate ammonia. However, encumbered by the formation of kinetically stable M-NH1─3 surface species, this reduction step remains challenging under mild conditions. Herein, we discovered that deleterious Ti-NH1─3 accumulation on TiN can be circumvented photochemically with supported single atoms and clusters of platinum (Pt1-Ptn) under N2-H2 conditions. The photochemistry of TiN selectively promoted Ti-NH formation, while Pt1-Ptn effectively transformed any formed Ti-NH into free ammonia. The generated ammonia was found to originate mainly from TiN reduction with a minor contribution from N2 activation. The knowledge accrued from this fundamental study could serve as a springboard for the development of MN materials for more efficient ammonia production to potentially disrupt the century-old fossil-powered Haber-Bosch process.
Related Concept Videos
Inorganic Nitrogen Assimilation
Metabolism of Chemolithotrophs
Overview of Nitrogen Metabolism
The largest pool of nitrogen available in the terrestrial ecosystem is gaseous nitrogen (N2) from the air, but this...
Preparation of Amines: Alkylation of Ammonia and Amines
Each alkylation step makes the nitrogen center more nucleophilic, which triggers successive alkylations until a quaternary ammonium salt is formed. Considering...
2° Amines to N-Nitrosamines: Reaction with NaNO2
Anoxygenic Photosynthesis


