An Amorphous Noble‐Metal‐Free Electrocatalyst that Enables Nitrogen Fixation under Ambient Conditions

Abstract

N₂ fixation by the electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) under ambient conditions is regarded as a potential approach to achieve NH₃ production, which still heavily relies on the Haber-Bosch process at the cost of huge energy and massive production of CO₂ . A noble-metal-free Bi₄ V₂ O₁₁ /CeO₂ hybrid with an amorphous phase (BVC-A) is used as the cathode for electrocatalytic NRR. The amorphous Bi₄ V₂ O₁₁ contains significant defects, which play a role as active sites. The CeO₂ not only serves as a trigger to induce the amorphous structure, but also establishes band alignment with Bi₄ V₂ O₁₁ for rapid interfacial charge transfer. Remarkably, BVC-A shows outstanding electrocatalytic NRR performance with high average yield (NH₃ : 23.21 μg h^-1 mg^-1_cat. , Faradaic efficiency: 10.16 %) under ambient conditions, which is superior to the Bi₄ V₂ O₁₁ /CeO₂ hybrid with crystalline phase (BVC-C) counterpart.