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Cobalt-copper dual-atom catalyst boosts electrocatalytic nitrate reduction from water
Jinshan Wei1, Hexing Lin2, Yi Li2
1Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials Service Safety & Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials & Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Advance Technology of Ceramics, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
A novel dual-atom catalyst efficiently removes nitrate from water via electrochemical reduction. This breakthrough offers a sustainable solution for water denitrification, surpassing previous catalyst performance.
Area of Science:
- Electrochemistry
- Materials Science
- Environmental Science
Background:
- Electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NO3RR) is a key technology for water denitrification.
- Current NO3RR methods face challenges due to sluggish reaction kinetics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop an enhanced catalyst for efficient electrochemical nitrate reduction.
- To investigate the catalytic mechanism of dual-atom catalysts for NO3RR.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of nitrogen-doped carbon supported cobalt-copper dual-atom catalyst (CoCu-NC DAC).
- Electrochemical performance testing of CoCu-NC DAC for NO3RR.
- In-situ analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations to elucidate reaction mechanisms.
Main Results:
- The optimized CoCu-NC DAC achieved 95.3% Faraday efficiency and a high NH4+ yield rate of 2.41 mg h-1 cm-2 at -0.6 VRHE.
- Performance surpassed conventional single-atom catalysts.
- Synergistic effects of optimized electronic structure and enhanced surface H concentration were confirmed.
Conclusions:
- CoCu-NC DAC significantly enhances electro-catalytic NO3RR performance.
- The study provides fundamental insights into dual-atom catalysts for NO3RR.
- This work offers a practical solution for groundwater nitrate remediation using atomically dispersed catalysts.
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