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Updated: May 17, 2025

Synthesis and Performance Characterizations of Transition Metal Single Atom Catalyst for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction
Published on: April 10, 2018
Highly selective electrocatalytic reduction of nitrate to ammonia over a copper-cobalt bimetallic catalyst
Daopeng Li1,2, Shengbo Zhang1,2, Zhixian Mao1,2
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 China tfshi@issp.ac.cn shbzhang@issp.ac.cn.
Abstract:
The electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction (NitRR) is a promising alternative to the traditional Haber-Bosch process. However, the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction results in poor NH3 selectivity (S NH3). Here, a Cu-Co bimetallic catalyst supported on biomass-derived porous carbon (Cu-Co/BPC) is designed and synthesized. Interestingly, the catalyst presents a high NH3 yield rate of 9114.1 ± 244.8 μg h-1 cm-2 at -1.4 V (vs. RHE) and a high faradaic efficiency (FE) of 84.5 ± 1.6% at -1.0 V (vs. RHE). Notably, the S NH of Cu-Co/BPC catalyst is kept above 94.2% under a broad range from -1.0 to -1.4 V (vs. RHE), indicating the high NitRR-to-NH3 selectivity of Cu-Co/BPC. The combination of in situ characterization and experimental results indicates that the electron transfer occurs between Cu and Co, and many active sites are generated for adsorption and activation of N[double bond, length as m-dash]O double bonds, and hydrogenation reactions occur with adjacent H protons to improve the selectivity of NH3.
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