Electrochemical reduction
of N2 reaction (NRR)
into NH3 promises a sustainable and environmentally friendly
technology at ambient temperature. However, high energy barrier and
the competition with the hydrogen evolution reaction result in poor
NH3 yield and low faradaic efficiency (FE) of NRR. Herein,
the FeS2 catalyst was synthesized via a one-step hydrothermal
method for NRR. In the N2-saturated Na2SO4 electrolyte, this catalyst exhibited superior catalytic performance
to achieve a high NH3 yield (37.2 μg h–1 mgcat.
–1) and FE (11.2%) with high
stability and selectivity at −0.5 V versus the reversible hydrogen
electrode, outperforming other NRR catalysts. According to experimental
results, a preferable associative distal pathway was proposed. Density
functional theory calculations revealed that the NRR process can proceed
preferably on Fe atoms instead of S atoms, and the conversion of *NH2 to *NH3 was the potential-determining step with
an energy barrier of 0.45 eV. Therefore, this work offers a new avenue
to prepare high-efficiency and highly selective transition-metal-based
catalysts for NRR under ambient conditions.
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