Pulsed Nitrate-to-Ammonia Electroreduction Facilitated by Tandem Catalysis of Nitrite Intermediates

Electroreduction of nitrate to ammonia offers a promising pathway for nutrient recycling and recovery from wastewater with energy and environmental sustainability. There have been considerable efforts on the regulation of reaction pathways to facilitate nitrate-to-ammonia conversion over the competing hydrogen evolution reaction but only with limited success. Here, we report a Cu single-atom gel (Cu SAG) electrocatalyst that produces NH3 from both nitrate and nitrite under neutral conditions. Given the unique mechanism of NO2– activation on Cu SAGs with spatial confinement and strengthened kinetics, a pulse electrolysis strategy is presented to cascade the accumulation and conversion of NO2– intermediates…

• CA
  Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation
• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Award: 52202372
• MO
  Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China

  Award: 2022YFA1505300
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province

  Award: 2023NSFSC0436
• CU
  Central University Basic Research Fund of China

  Award: YJ2021151
• BE
  Basic Energy Sciences

  Award: DE-SC0019019