Fe-MOF Catalytic Nanoarchitectonic toward Electrochemical Ammonia Production

Electrochemical reduction of nitrate into ammonia has lately been identified as one among the promising solutions to address the challenges triggered by the growing global energy demand. Exploring newer electrocatalyst materials is vital to make this process effective and feasible. Recently, metal-organic framework (MOF)-based catalysts are being well investigated for electrocatalytic ammonia synthesis, accounting for their enhanced structural and compositional integrity during catalytic reduction reactions. In this study, we investigate the ability of the PCN-250-Fe-3 MOF toward ammonia production in its pristine and activated forms. The activated MOF catalyst delivered a faradaic efficiency of about 90% at -1 V vs RHE and a yield rate of 2.5 x 10(-4) mol cm(-2) h(-1), while the pristine catalyst delivered a 60% faradaic efficiency at the same potential. Theoretical studies further provide insights into the nitrate reduction reaction mechanism catalyzed by the PCN-250-Fe-3 MOF catalyst. In short, simpler and cost-effective strategies such as pretreatment of electrocatalysts have an upper hand in aggravating the intrinsic material properties, for catalytic applications, when compared to conventional material modification approaches.

Keywords

metal-organic framework, PCN-250-Fe-3, ammonia synthesis, thermal activation, electrochemical nitrate reduction, electrocatalysts

Citation

ACS applied materials & interfaces. 2023, vol. 15, issue 40, p. 47294-47306.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.3c12822

Document type

Peer-reviewed

Document version

Published version

Language of document

en

Document licence

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/