Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 12, 2025
Synthesis and Performance Characterizations of Transition Metal Single Atom Catalyst for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction
Published on: April 10, 2018
Ambient electrosynthesis of urea with nitrate and carbon dioxide over a CuRu alloy catalyst
Jiafang Liu1,2, Shengbo Zhang1,2, Yong Jiang3
1Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Centre for Environmental and Energy Nanomaterials, Anhui Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience Institute of Solid State Physics, HFIPS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, P. R. China. shbzhang@issp.ac.cn.
Abstract:
Urea synthesis under mild conditions starting from the electrocatalytic coupling of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrate represents a promising alternative experimentally to conquer the huge energy consumption in the industrial Haber-Bosch process. Herein, an electrocatalyst consisting of CuRu alloy nanoparticles on carbonized cellulose (CuRu-CBC) is designed and realizes the urea yield rate of 394.85 ± 16.19 μg h-1 mgcat-1 and an ultrahigh faradaic efficiency (FE) of 68.94 ± 3.05% at -0.55 V (vs. RHE) under ambient conditions. Further XAS analyses indicated that the favored internal electron transfer between Cu and Ru dual active sites significantly improved the C-N coupling activity. Various characterizations, including in situ ATR-SEIRAS and DEMS analysis highlighted the favorable generation of key intermediates *CO and *NH, making CuRu-CBC a promising catalyst for urea synthesis.
