Efficient urea electrosynthesis from carbon dioxide and nitrate via alternating Cu–W bimetallic C–N coupling sitesShow others and affiliations
2023 (English)In: Nature Communications, E-ISSN 2041-1723, Vol. 14, no 1, article id 4491Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Electrocatalytic urea synthesis is an emerging alternative technology to the traditional energy-intensive industrial urea synthesis protocol. Novel strategies are urgently needed to promote the electrocatalytic C–N coupling process and inhibit the side reactions. Here, we report a CuWO4 catalyst with native bimetallic sites that achieves a high urea production rate (98.5 ± 3.2 μg h−1 mg−1cat) for the co-reduction of CO2 and NO3− with a high Faradaic efficiency (70.1 ± 2.4%) at −0.2 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode. Mechanistic studies demonstrated that the combination of stable intermediates of *NO2 and *CO increases the probability of C–N coupling and reduces the potential barrier, resulting in high Faradaic efficiency and low overpotential. This study provides a new perspective on achieving efficient urea electrosynthesis by stabilizing the key reaction intermediates, which may guide the design of other electrochemical systems for high-value C–N bond-containing chemicals.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature , 2023. Vol. 14, no 1, article id 4491
National Category
Physical Chemistry
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-335714DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-40273-2ISI: 001038216100018PubMedID: 37495582Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85165918229OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-335714DiVA, id: diva2:1796245
Note
QC 20230912
2023-09-122023-09-122024-03-15Bibliographically approved