Cu nanoparticles decorated juncus-derived carbon for efficient electrocatalytic nitrite-to-ammonia conversion.

Electrocatalytic nitrite reduction to value-added NH can simultaneously achieve sustainable ammonia production and N-contaminant removal in natural environments, which has attracted widespread attention but still lacks efficient catalysts. In this work, Cu nanoparticles decorated juncus-derived carbon can be proposed as a high-active electrocatalyst for NO-to-NH conversion, obtaining a high Faradaic efficiency of 93.2% and a satisfactory NH yield of 523.5 μmol h mg. Density functional theory calculations were applied to uncover insightful understanding of internal catalytic mechanism.