The Preparation of UiO‐66‐NH2/CNT Electrocatalyst and its High Catalytic Performance for Electrochemical Synthetic Ammonia in Neutral Electrolyte

Abstract

AbstractThe electrochemical synthesis of ammonia is a sustainable green ammonia synthesis technology. The core reaction involved in this process‐the nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) is a slow kinetic reaction, which requires efficient catalysts to improve the ammonia yield rate. A series of UiO‐66‐NH2/CNT‐X (X=0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20 g) electrocatalysts with different carbon nanotube (CNT) content were synthesized by hydrothermal method. UiO‐66‐NH2/CNT‐0.15 with appropriate CNT content has the highest NH3 yield of 1.85×10−10 mol cm−2 s−1 (22.644 μg h−1 mgcat−1) at −0.3 V (vs. RHE), and the Faradaic efficiency (FE) is 37.78 %. The main reason is that the conductivity of CNT improves the charge transfer efficiency and ensures the effective electron conduction path of the catalyst. Besides, CNT in UiO‐66‐NH2/CNT‐X composite material inhibits the aggregation of UiO‐66‐NH2 particles, exposes more active sites and reduces the particle size of UiO‐66‐NH2. So, the synergistic effect between UiO‐66‐NH2 particles and CNT improves the ammonia yield.