Oxygen vacancy-regulated nanorod array electrodes for boosting the electrocatalytic synthesis of ammonia from nitrate wastewater.

The adsorption of nitrate is the key to enhancing the electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction (NitRR). Herein, a typical hydrolysis-coupled redox (HCR) reaction has been designed to prepare unique 3D Cu/FeO core-shell nanorod array cathodes with controllable oxygen vacancy concentrations for NitRR. The optimal Cu/FeO-13 achieves a high nitrate conversion of 99.

Fe and Cu Double-Doped CoO Nanorod with Abundant Oxygen Vacancies: A High-Rate Electrocatalyst for Tandem Electroreduction of Nitrate to Ammonia.

The electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NORR) is an attractive green alternative to the conventional Haber-Bosch method for the synthesis of NH. However, this reaction is a tandem process that involves multiple steps of electrons and protons, posing a significant challenge to the efficient synthesis of NH. Herein, we report a high-rate NORR electrocatalyst of Fe and Cu double-doped CoO nanorod (Fe/Cu-CoO) with abundant oxygen vacancies, where the Cu preferentially catalyzes the rapid conversion of NO to NO and the oxygen vacancy in the CoO substrate can accelerate NO reduction to NH.