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Nano Research 2019, 12(4): 919-924 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2323-x
Research Article | Issue | Published: 07 March 2019

Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheet for effective ambient N2 fixation to NH3

Show Author's Information Ya Zhang1,§,  Huitong Du2,§,  Yongjun Ma3,  Lei Ji1,  Haoran Guo4,  Ziqi Tian4,  Hongyu Chen1,  Hong Huang1,  Guanwei Cui5,  Abdullah M. Asiri6,  Fengli Qu3( ),  Liang Chen4( ),  Xuping Sun1( )
Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu,610054,China;
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering,Qufu Normal University,Qufu,273165,China;
Analytical and Test Center,Southwest University of Science and Technology,Mianyang,621010,China;
Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Ningbo,315201,China;
College of Chemistry,Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Shandong Normal University,Jinan,250014,China;
Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science & Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials Research,King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203,Jeddah,21589,Saudi Arabia;

§ Ya Zhang and Huitong Du contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
density functional theory, boron nitride nanosheet, N2 reduction reaction, NH3 electrosynthesis, ambient conditions
Topics:
Boron nitrideElectrocatalystsIIINanosheetsNitridesV semiconductors
Cite this article:
Zhang Y, Du H, Ma Y, et al. Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheet for effective ambient N2 fixation to NH3. Nano Research, 2019, 12(4): 919-924. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2323-x
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Abstract Electronic supplementary material About this article

Industrial production of NH3 from N2 and H2 significantly relies on Haber-Bosch process, which suffers from high energy consume and CO2 emission. As a sustainable and environmentally-benign alternative process, electrochemical artificial N2 fixation at ambient conditions, however, is highly required efficient electrocatalysts. In this study, we demonstrate that hexagonal boron nitride nanosheet (h-BNNS) is able to electrochemically catalyze N2 to NH3. In acidic solution, h-BNNS catalyst attains a high NH3 formation rate of 22.4 μg·h-1·mg-1cat. and a high Faradic efficiency of 4.7% at -0.75 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, with excellent stability and durability. Density functional theory calculations reveal that unsaturated boron at the edge site can activate inert N2 molecule and significantly reduce the energy barrier for NH3 formation.

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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 23 November 2018
Revised: 13 January 2019
Accepted: 29 January 2019
Published: 07 March 2019
Issue date: April 2019

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© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21575137, 21775089, and 21375076), the Key Research and Development Program of Shandong Province (No. 2015GSF121031) and the Natural Science Foundation Projects of Shandong Province (Nos. ZR2017JL010, ZR2017QB008, and ZR2017LEE006).

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