B and Fe co-doped Co2P hollow nanocubes for nitrate electroreduction to ammonia

Abstract

Nitrate (NO3−) electroreduction reaction (NO3−RR) provides an attractive and sustainable route for NO3− pollution mitigation or energy-saved ammonia (NH3) synthesis. In this work, high-quality B and Fe co-doped Co2P hollow nanocubes (B/Fe-Co2P HNCs) are successfully synthesized though simultaneous boronation-phosphorization treatment, which reveal outstanding selectivity, activity, stability for the NO3− to NH3 conversion in neutral electrolyte because of big surface area, fast mass transport, superhydrophilic surface, and optimized electronic structure. B/Fe-Co2P HNCs can achieve the high NH3 yield rate (22.67 mg h−1 mgcat−1) as well as Faradaic efficiency (97.54%) for NO3−RR, greatly outperforming most of non-precious metal based NO3−RR electrocatalysts.