Rational Engineering on Copper-Silver-Ruthenium Heterostructures for the Electrocatalytic Conversion of Nitrate and...

Area of Science:

• Electrochemistry
• Materials Science
• Sustainable Chemistry

Background:

• Developing efficient electrocatalysts for coupled reactions is crucial for sustainable chemical synthesis.
• Bifunctional electrocatalysts are needed for simultaneous nitrate reduction and glycerol oxidation.
• Interface engineering offers a promising strategy for designing advanced electrocatalysts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a high-performance bifunctional electrocatalyst for the co-conversion of nitrate and glycerol.
• To enable sustainable synthesis of ammonium formate via an electrochemical system.
• To investigate the structure-performance relationships of the engineered electrocatalyst.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of 3D Ag/Ru-decorated CuO/Cu(OH)2 heterostructures on copper foams.
• Electrochemical characterization of nitrate reduction reaction (NO3RR) and glycerol oxidation reaction (GOR) performance.
• In-situ mechanistic studies using electrochemical techniques.
• Construction and testing of a coupled NO3RR || GOR electrolyzer.

Main Results:

• The optimal catalyst achieved high Faradaic efficiency (97.3% for NH3, 82.6% for formate).
• Demonstrated high yields for both ammonia and formate synthesis.
• The constructed electrolyzer produced ammonium formate with a current density of 100 mA cm-2 at 1.48 V.
• Successfully synthesized 20.9 g of ammonium formate from simulated pollutants and crude glycerol.

Conclusions:

• Interface engineering is effective for designing bifunctional electrocatalysts.
• The developed catalyst enables a sustainable and efficient pathway for ammonium formate production.
• This work provides a promising approach for C-N co-conversion and value-added chemical synthesis.