Robust Photoelectrochemical Route for the Ambient
Fixation of Dinitrogen into Ammonia over a Nanojunction Assembled
from Ceria and an Iron Boride/Phosphide Cocatalyst
The
nitrogen reduction reaction is of great scientific significance
as a hydrogen fuel carrier as well as a source of value-added products;
in context to this, photoelectrochemical (PEC) nitrogen fixation emerges
as an effective and environmentally benign strategy to meet the need.
Hence, the current work reports an effective catalytic system containing
a low-cost iron boride-based cocatalyst onto the CeO2 nanosheet
matrix for photoelectrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction. The harmonized
electronic property and the ensemble effect of phosphorus and boron
in FeB/P with unsaturated metal sites make it a site-selective cocatalyst
for nitrogen adsorption and its polarization. Furthermore, the low Fermi level of iron borophosphide enhances
the trapping of photogenerated electrons from CeO2 and
productively provides it to the adsorbed nitrogen species. The observed
peculiar photocurrent behavior confirms the interaction of photogenerated
electrons with adsorbed nitrogen species and its subsequent reduction
by the surrounding protonic environment. The optimized CeO2-FeB/P photoelectrocatalyst exhibited an excellent NH3 yield velocity, i.e., 9.54 μg/h/cm2 at −0.12
V vs RHE with a solar-to-chemical conversion efficiency of 0.046%
under ambient conditions. The same catalyst is also very active under
near-zero biasing conditions and possesses impressive durability even
after multiple uses. This work might strategically direct a promising
way for the exploration of new photoelectrocatalytic systems for effective
PEC-nitrogen reduction reaction.