TiO Nanoparticles with Ti Sites toward Efficient NH Electrosynthesis under Ambient Conditions.

Electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) enabled by introducing Ti defect sites into TiO through a doping strategy has recently attracted widespread attention. However, the amount of Ti ions is limited due to the low concentration of dopants. Herein, we propose TiO nanoparticles as a pure Ti system that performs efficiently toward NH electrosynthesis under ambient conditions. This work has suggested that Ti ions, as the main catalytically active sites, significantly increase the NRR activity. In an acidic electrolyte, TiO achieves extraordinary performance with a high NH yield and a Faradaic efficiency of 26.01 μg h mg cat. and 9.16%, respectively, which are superior to most titanium-based NRR catalysts recently reported. Significantly, it also demonstrates a stable NH yield in five consecutive cycles. Theoretical calculations uncovered that the enhanced electrocatalytic activity of TiO originated from Ti active sites and significantly lowered the overpotential of the potential-determining step.