Interfacial engineering of hydrophobic octadecanethiol/Pd metallene toward electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction.

Abstract

In this work, we propose the modification of ultrathin and wrinkled Pd metallene by hydrophobic octadecanethiol (Pdene@C18) via Pd-S bonds for the nitrogen reduction reaction. The hydrophobic self-assembled monolayer C18 can effectively capture more N2 and inhibit the hydrogen evolution reaction. As a result, a high NH3 yield and Faraday efficiency of 27.97 μg h-1 mgcat.-1 and 14.29% are achieved for Pdene@C18 under neutral conditions, respectively, highlighting the modification of hydrophobic monolayers for efficient nitrogen electro-reduction to ammonia.