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Updated: Aug 25, 2026

The Effect of Interfacial Chemical Bonding in TiO2-SiO2 Composites on Their Photocatalytic NOx Abatement Performance
Published on: July 4, 2017
Nitrogen Radical Photocatalysed Reduction of Nitrous Oxide
Reece Lister-Roberts1, Agamemnon E Crumpton1, Meera Mehta1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
None:
Nitrous oxide (N2O) represents one of the most potent greenhouse gases, with a global warming potential of approximately 300× that of CO2. Yet protocols for its reduction to benign products such as dinitrogen (N2) remain comparatively rare. In this study, we report a nitrogen-based catalyst that enables the photochemical reduction of N2O to N2 using pinacol borane as the reductant. Mechanistic investigations indicate that the active catalytic species operates via an unprecedented N(0)/N(-1) redox cycle. This work represents the first metal-free homogeneous photocatalytic protocol for such a process.
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