Industrial-Scale Electrosynthesis of Amino Acids from the Air via a Molecular Ligand-Engineered Bismuth Catalyst

Electrosynthesis of amino acids from air redefines pathways for accessing the fundamental molecular building blocks of life, yet it suffers from an intractable activity-selectivity trade-off due to kinetic mismatches across multistep reactions, especially in one-pot systems. Here, we report a molecular ligand-engineered bismuth catalyst (L-Bi) prepared via in situ electroreduction of bismuth metal-organic frameworks, achieving a record 93% Faradaic efficiency for glycine synthesis from simulated plasma-oxidized air and glyoxylic acid at a current density of 100 mA cm-2. In situ spectroscopy and theoretical calculations reveal that the preserved coordinated ligands engineer the electronic and spatial environment of Bi active sites, lowering the product desorption barrier (the rate-determining step), and enriching edge-active sites, thus leading to highly efficient and selective formation of amino acids at high current density. This work provides a solution to the long-standing electrocatalysis dilemma, establishing a generalizable paradigm for converting air into value-added organonitrogen compounds, which is critical to global nitrogen circularity.