Cu/CuO_x In-Plane Heterostructured Nanosheet Arrays with Rich Oxygen Vacancies Enhance Nitrate Electroreduction to Ammonia

Abstract

The artificial ammonia synthesis via electrochemical nitrate reduction has met increasing research interest, but it is still necessary to develop advanced catalysts with high nitrate-to-ammonia capability. Herein, we propose and demonstrate a one-step method to construct binder-free Cu foam-supported oxygen vacancy-rich Cu/CuO_x in-plane heterostructured nanosheet arrays (Cu/CuO_x/CF). In addition to exposing ample active sites, the two-dimensional nanosheet morphology greatly facilitates the mass/charge-transfer process during electrocatalysis. Besides, the in-plane heterojunctions and rich oxygen vacancies induced synergistic effect can modulate the electronic structure of active sites and thus tune the adsorption properties of the reactant intermediates and inhibit the formation of undesirable byproducts, which is conducive to the further improvement of nitrate reduction activity. As a result, these advantages endow the Cu/CuO_x/CF with superior performance for ammonia synthesis via nitrate electroreduction, achieving high ammonia selectivity (95.00%) and Faradaic efficiency (93.58%).