Anthropogenic nitrate pollution has an adverse impact on the environment and human health. As part of a sustainable nitrate management strategy, electrochemical denitrification is studied as an innovative strategy for nutrients recycling and recovering. It is, however, challenging to selectively electro‐reduce nitrate with low‐concentration for ammonia. Herein, the photo‐deposition of size‐defined Ru nanoclusters (NCs, average size: ≈1.66 nm) on TiO2 nanotubes (NTs) is demonstrated, which show improved performance for nitrate‐to‐ammonia electroreduction with a maximum yield rate of ≈600 µg h−1 cm−2 and a faradic efficiency (FE) of > 90.0% across a broad range of potentials in comparison with electrodeposited Ru nanoparticles (NPs, average size: ≈23.78 nm) on TiO2 NTs. Experimental and theoretical evidence further suggests the small‐size Ru NCs with the intrinsically enhanced selectivity and activity because of the strong metal/substrate interaction and unsaturated coordination state. The findings highlight the size effect on Ru‐based catalyst supported on metal oxides, a versatile catalytic model, which allows the regulation of hydrogen adsorption to favor ammonia production over the competing hydrogen evolution reaction.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.