Photoinduced Electrochemical Reduction of Nitrite at an Electrochemically Roughened Silver Surface

Abstract

Photoelectrochemical reduction of nitrite and nitrate was studied on the surface of an electrochemically roughened silver electrode. The dependence of the photocurrent on photon energy, applied potential, and concentration of nitrite was determined. It was concluded that the photoelectrochemical reduction proceeds via a photoemission process followed by the capture of hydrated electrons by electron acceptors. The excitation of plasmon resonances in nanosize metal structures produced during the roughening procedure resulted in the enhancement of the photoemission process. Ammonia was detected as one of the final products in this reaction. Mechanisms for the photoelectrochemical reduction of nitrite and nitrate are proposed.

Review of Experimental Setups for Plasmonic Photocatalytic Reactions

“…These optical and chemical responses are altered on the base of a combination of nanoparticle or nanoparticle-substrate properties that undergo either nanoparticle charging or charge transfer in plasmon-enhanced photocatalytic reactions. Cell illumination leads to several deviations from conventional cyclic voltammetry characteristic traces, such as discrete shifts in onset potential for half reactions and an increase in the photocurrent, which provide useful information on the energy barriers for the reaction [101]. This is consistent with the quantized size dependence of light-to-heat energy transformation through a Pt thin film with a thickness of several nanometers [102].…”

Electrochemical reduction of bicarbonate on carbon nanotube-supported silver oxide: An electrochemical impedance spectroscopy study

“…In these studies, a higher current density was observed for Ag (110) as compared to Ag (111) and Ag (100) [14]. Several electrocatalysts including Ag bulk [15], immobilized Ag [16], Ag-nanoparticles [17], roughened Ag surface [18], bimetallic alloy Ag/Au [19], Ag/TiO2 [20] and Ag/graphene [21] have also been reported for CO2 reduction, with CO and H2 as the main products. CO is generally adsorbs weakly on Ag and is hardly detected by vibrational spectroscopy [22].…”

Reduction of nitrite on tin-modified noble metal electrodes

“…Nitrite has been important from the viewpoint of electrochemistry because it is oxidized to nitrate and reduced to nitric oxide or other compounds. The electrodes for nitrite reduction have been reported, which contain metals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10], binary metals [11,12], metal complexes or metal oxides , doped diamond [34], and biological materials [35]. Some of these reports contain the reduction of both nitrate and nitrite [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], which indicates that the electrodes having a reduction activity for nitrate is effective for nitrite reduction.…”