碱性介质中Fe/N/C催化剂的氧气还原反应催化性能研究

以氧化石墨烯(GO)为碳载体, K₃Fe(CN)₆同时作为N源和Fe源, 经热处理后构建了新型Fe/N/C结构的氧气还原催化剂. 在热处理过程中, 氧化石墨烯上的官能团分解脱离形成活性中心, Fe元素和N元素的同时掺杂是通过氧化石墨烯与K₃Fe(CN)₆之间的相互作用而实现的. 通过傅立叶变换红外光谱(FTIR)和X射线光电子能谱(XPS)表征证明了这种非贵金属催化剂中N元素和Fe元素的成功掺杂, 在催化剂中N元素主要是以吡啶式氮、吡咯式氮和石墨式氮的形式存在, Fe(Ⅱ)和Fe(Ⅲ)则与其中的吡啶式氮配位形成Fe-N_x结构. 采用循环伏安法(CV)和旋转圆盘电极(RDE)技术, 研究其在碱性介质中对氧气还原反应(ORR)的电催化性能. 实验结果显示: Fe/N/C催化剂具有良好的ORR电催化活性, 在碱性溶液中的起始电位为-0.15 V, 同时有着良好的稳定性和抗甲醇性能.     

Nanoporous Palladium Hydride for Electrocatalytic N2 Reduction under Ambient Conditions

The electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) is an alternative eco‐friendly strategy for sustainable N₂ fixation with renewable energy. However, NRR suffers from sluggish kinetics owing to difficult N₂ adsorption and N≡N cleavage. Now, nanoporous palladium hydride is reported as electrocatalyst for electrochemical N₂ reduction under ambient conditions, achieving a high ammonia yield rate of 20.4 μg h^?1 mg^?1 with a Faradaic efficiency of 43.6 % at low overpotential of 150 mV. Isotopic hydrogen labeling studies suggest the involvement of lattice hydrogen atoms in the hydride as active hydrogen source. In situ Raman analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations further reveal the reduction of energy barrier for the rate‐limiting *N₂H formation step. The unique protonation mode of palladium hydride would provide a new insight on designing efficient and robust electrocatalysts for nitrogen fixation.     

氮化铌电催化还原CO2

通过电化学的方法将CO₂转化为CO是解决资源和环境问题的经济友好的策略。在本次工作中,利用湿化学方法制备了铌/碳的前驱体,在NH₃和Ar氛围下煅烧后分别转化为Nb₄N₅/C和Nb₂O₅/C。当氮化温度达到700℃时,制备的Nb₄N₅/C表现出优异的催化活性,在CO₂饱和的0.5 mol·L^-1的NaCl溶液中,电解电位为-0.83V（RHE）时,CO的法拉第效率最高,达到57%。实验结果表明,Nb₄N₅/C的催化活性与Nb₄N₅中的N掺杂有关。     

前驱体中N含量对FeN/C催化剂氧还原活性的影响研究

采用热解法制备FeN/C催化剂,考察催化剂前驱体中氮含量对其氧还原活性的影响. 使用X射线衍射、比表面积和孔径分布测试、透射电子显微镜以及热重分析等方法对催化剂的结构、形貌及催化剂前驱体的热性质等进行表征,使用线性扫描伏安法对催化剂的氧还原活性进行测试. 结果表明,以1,10-菲啰啉为氮源,FeCl₃为铁源,Black Pearl 2000为载体,催化剂前驱体中1,10-菲啰啉含量为20wt%,Fe含量为1wt %时,热处理制备所得催化剂粒子分布均匀,比表面积为824.48 m ²·g ^-1,平均孔隙为10.58 nm,表面的氮元素含量为0.31wt%;并具有最好的氧还原催化活性.催化剂前驱体中氮源含量在热解过程中导致催化剂的比表面积、孔径结构及表面氮元素含量的变化是影响催化剂活性的关键因素.     

环境条件下电催化氮还原的现状、挑战与展望

氨是一种重要的化肥生产原料和清洁能源载体,在工业上主要通过哈伯法合成,但该工艺反应条件苛刻,需要高温高压并消耗大量的化石能源.因此,开发能耗低、反应温和的合成氨方法,对于缓解能源和环境的双重压力具有重要的现实意义.近年来,在温和条件下通过电催化氮还原反应(NRR)合成氨有望替代哈伯法,但该技术的重点在于设计合理的电催化...     

Different Bonding Defects on Dual-Metal Single-Atom Electrocatalyst CoZnN6(OH) for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Since dual-metal single-atom catalyst (CoZnN/C) has been experimentally synthesized by atomically arching CoZn on N-doped carbon nanofibers and exhibited potential electrocatalysis activity towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), we perform first-principles calculations to identify the highly active sites at different defects by comparing the four-step ORR processes on the constructed four CoZnN₆ models on graphene. The corresponding N-edge effect, dopant effect, and C-edge ring-closing effect are evaluated with the ORR evolution on different bonding environments, including pristine CoZnN₆(OH), nanoribbon (NR) along zigzag direction, substitution of carbon/oxygen (C/O substitution), and C-edge ring-closing configurations. OH-ligand is shown to significantly improve the ORR activities for all the considered structures. Especially, C-substituted CoZnN₆(OH), NR-CoZnN₅O(OH) and CoZnN₆(OH) with C-edge-effect exhibit obviously reduced overpotentials (η_lim=0.28, 0.48 and 0.41 V) of rate-determining steps among all the considered nine candidates. By plotting the relationship between the limiting potentials (U_lim) and free energies of intermediate *OH (ΔG_OH*), two prior catalysts of pristine-CoZnN₅C(OH) and defect-CoZnN₆CH(OH) are located near the top of the volcano curve with higher U_lim=0.95 and 0.82 V than Pt(111) (U_lim=0.80 V), implying that C-substitution could facilitate ORR performance in pristine- and defect-CoZnN₆(OH) bonding situation.     

Cu-bipy-BTC衍生碳基材料的制备及其氧还原电催化性能

制备高效、廉价的氧还原(ORR)电催化剂是燃料电池的技术关键. 本文采用水热法制备出前驱体金属有机骨架化合物（MOF：Cu-bipy-BTC,bipy=2,2′-联吡啶,BTC=均苯三甲酸）后,再高温煅烧得到碳基材料MOF-800. 采用扫描电镜、X射线衍射、红外光谱、氮气吸附/脱附等温线和X射线光电子谱表征了材料的形貌和结构特征;采用线性扫描伏安曲线、i-t曲线等考察了材料的氧还原催化性能. 结果表明,与前驱体Cu-bipy-BTC相比,MOF-800含有大量的微孔(0.5 ~ 1.3 nm),为铜、氮掺杂多孔碳. MOF-800的电荷转移阻抗为10.6 Ω,比Cu-bipy-BTC降低了97.2%,具有优良的导电性. MOF-800具有优异的ORR催化性能,其起始电位约为-0.04 V(vs. Ag/AgCl),其电子转移数接近4. 铜、氮掺杂的多孔碳结构导电性好,高含量的吡啶氮、吡咯氮和石墨氮提供了大量催化活性位点(C-N, Cu-N_x),是MOF-800具有高氧还原电催化性能的主要原因. 本研究可为煅烧Cu-bipy-BTC制备碳基材料用于燃料电池修饰阴极提供技术支撑与理论依据.     

DFT and Empirical Considerations on Electrocatalytic Water/Carbon Dioxide Reduction by CoTMPyP in Neutral Aqueous Solutions**

A combined experimental and density functional theory (DFT) investigation was employed in order to examine the mechanism of electrochemical CO₂ reduction and H₂ formation from water reduction in neutral aqueous solutions. A water soluble cobalt porphyrin, cobalt [5,10,15,20-(tetra-N-methyl-4-pyridyl)porphyrin], (CoTMPyP), was used as catalyst. The possible attachment of different axial ligands as well as their effect on the electrocatalytic cycles were examined. A cobalt porphyrin hydride is a key intermediate which is generated after the initial reduction of the catalyst. The hydride is involved in the formation of H₂ and formate and acts as an indirect proton source for the formation of CO in these H⁺-starving conditions. The experimental results are in agreement with the computations and give new insights into electrocatalytic mechanisms involving water soluble metalloporphyrins. We conclude that in addition to the porphyrin's structure and metal ion center, the electrolyte surroundings play a key role in dictating the products of CO₂/H₂O reduction.     

Al-Decorated C2N Monolayer as a Potential Catalyst for NO Reduction with CO Molecules: A DFT Investigation

Developing efficient and economical catalysts for NO reduction is of great interest. Herein, the catalytic reduction of NO molecules on an Al-decorated C₂N monolayer (Al-C₂N) is systematically investigated using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Our results reveal that the Al-C₂N catalyst is highly selective for NO, more so than CO, according to the values of the adsorption energy and charge transfer. The NO reduction reaction more preferably undergoes the (NO)₂ dimer reduction process instead of the NO direct decomposition process. For the (NO)₂ dimer reduction process, two NO molecules initially co-adsorb to form (NO)₂ dimers, followed by decomposition into N₂O and O_ads species. On this basis, five kinds of (NO)₂ dimer structures that initiate four reaction paths are explored on the Al-C₂N surface. Particularly, the cis-(NO)₂ dimer structures (D_cis-N and D_cis-O) are crucial intermediates for NO reduction, where the max energy barrier along the energetically most favorable pathway (path II) is as low as 3.6 kcal/mol. The remaining O_ads species on Al-C₂N are then easily reduced with CO molecules, being beneficial for a new catalytic cycle. These results, combined with its low-cost nature, render Al-C₂N a promising catalyst for NO reduction under mild conditions.     

DFT-based Machine Learning for Ensemble Effect of Pd@Au Electrocatalysts on CO2 Reduction Reaction

The ensemble effect due to variation of Pd content in Pd−Au alloys have been widely investigated for several important reactions, including CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR), however, identifying the stable Pd arrangements on the alloyed surface and picking out the active sites are still challenging. Here we use a density functional theory (DFT) based machine-learning (ML) approach to efficiently find the low-energy configurations of Pd−Au(111) surface alloys and the potentially active sites for CO₂RR, fully covering the Pd content from 0 to 100 %. The ML model is actively learning process to improve the predicting accuracy for the configuration formation energy and to find the stable Pd−Au(111) alloyed surfaces, respectively. The local surface properties of adsorption sites are classified into two classes by the K-means clustering approach, which are closely related to the Pd content on Au surface. The classification is reflected in the variation of adsorption energy of CO and H: In the low Pd content range (0–60 %) the adsorption energies over the surface alloys can be tuned significantly, and in the medium Pd content (37-68 %), the catalytic activity of surface alloys for CO₂RR can be increased by increase the Pd content and attributed to the meta-stable active site over the surface. Thus, the active site-dependent reaction mechanism is elucidated based on the ensemble effect, which provides new physical insights to understand the surface-related properties of catalysts.     

Unifying the Nitrogen Reduction Activity of Anatase and Rutile TiO2 Surfaces

TiO₂ is a model transition metal oxide that has been applied frequently in both photocatalytic and electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reactions (NRR). However, the phase which is more NRR active still remains a puzzle. This work presents a theoretical study on the NRR activity of the (001), (100), (101), and (110) surfaces of both anatase and rutile TiO₂. We found that perfect surfaces are not active for NRR, while the oxygen vacancy can promote the reaction by providing excess electrons and low-coordinated Ti atoms that enhance the binding of the key intermediate (HNN*). The NRR activity of the eight facets can be unified into a single scaling line. The anatase TiO₂(101) and rutile TiO₂(101) surfaces were found to be the most and the second most active surfaces with a limiting potential of −0.91 V and −0.95 V respectively, suggesting that the TiO₂ NRR activity is not very phase-sensitive. For photocatalytic NRR, the results suggest that the anatase TiO₂(101) surface is still the most active facet. We further found that the binding strength of key intermediates scale well with the formation energy of oxygen vacancy, which is determined by the oxygen coordination number and the degree of relaxation of the surface after the creation of oxygen vacancy. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of the activity of TiO₂ surfaces. The results should be helpful for the design of more efficient TiO₂-based NRR catalysts.     

The Crucial Role of Charge Accumulation and Spin Polarization in Activating Carbon‐Based Catalysts for Electrocatalytic Nitrogen Reduction

Cost‐effective carbon‐based catalysts are promising for catalyzing the electrochemical N₂ reduction reaction (NRR). However, the activity origin of carbon‐based catalysts towards NRR remains unclear, and regularities and rules for the rational design of carbon‐based NRR electrocatalysts are still lacking. Based on a combination of theoretical calculations and experimental observations, chalcogen/oxygen group element (O, S, Se, Te) doped carbon materials were systematically evaluated as potential NRR catalysts. Heteroatom‐doping‐induced charge accumulation facilitates N₂ adsorption on carbon atoms and spin polarization boosts the potential‐determining step of the first protonation to form *NNH. Te‐doped and Se‐doped C catalysts exhibited high intrinsic NRR activity that is superior to most metal‐based catalysts. Establishing the correlation between the electronic structure and NRR performance for carbon‐based materials paves the pathway for their NRR application.     

Insights into Nitrogen-doped Carbon for Oxygen Reduction: The Role of Graphitic and Pyridinic Nitrogen Species

Nitrogen-doped carbons (N/Cs) manifest good catalytic performance for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) for fuel cell systems. However, to date, controversies remain on the role of active sites in N/Cs. In the present study, ORR test was conducted on three N/Cs in O₂-saturated 0.1 M KOH aqueous solution, where apparent linear correlation between graphitic N contents and ORR activity was observed. Theoretical calculations demonstrated that graphitic N doping is energetically more favorable than that of pyridinic N doping for ORR and the pyridinic N leads to more preferential with 2 e^– ORR pathway. These results reveal that graphitic N plays a key role in N/Cs mediated ORR activity. This work lays a solid foundation on identifying the active sites in heteroatom-doped carbons and can be exploited for rational design and engineering of effective carbon-based ORR catalysts.     

Regulating Efficient and Selective Single-atom Catalysts for Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction

Anchoring transition metal (TM) atoms on suitable substrates to form single-atom catalysts (SACs) is a novel approach to constructing electrocatalysts. Graphdiyne with sp−sp² hybridized carbon atoms and uniformly distributed pores have been considered as a potential carbon material for supporting metal atoms in a variety of catalytic processes. Herein, density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to study the single TM atom anchoring on graphdiyne (TM₁−GDY, TM=Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Co and Cu) as the catalysts for CO₂ reduction. After anchoring metal atoms on GDY, the catalytic activity of TM₁−GDY (TM=Mn, Co and Cu) for CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) are significantly improved comparing with the pristine GDY. Among the studied TM₁−GDY, Cu₁−GDY shows excellent electrocatalytic activity for CO₂ reduction for which the product is HCOOH and the limiting potential (U_L) is −0.16 V. Mn₁−GDY and Co₁−GDY exhibit superior catalytic selectivity for CO₂ reduction to CH₄ with U_L of −0.62 and −0.34 V, respectively. The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by TM₁−GDY (TM=Mn, Co and Cu) occurs on carbon atoms, while the active sites of CO₂RR are the transition metal atoms . The present work is expected to provide a solid theoretical basis for CO₂ conversion into valuable hydrocarbons.     

CoPy/C催化剂应用碱性介质氧还原催化的电化学性能

利用碳黑（Vulcan XC-72R）中加入硫酸钴和吡啶（Py）作为催化剂前驱体,经溶剂分散热处理构建了一类新型的高效氧还原CoPy/C复合催化剂.并运用循环伏安法（CV）和旋转圆盘电极（RDE）技术研究了不同Co含量的CoPy/C催化剂在碱性介质中对氧还原的电催化活性.结果表明:Co的存在对氧的催化剂活性位的形成有重要影响,800℃下所制备的10%Co30%Py/C（质量分数）复合催化剂表现出最佳的氧还原催化活性.以其制备的气体扩散电极在3.0 mol·L^-1KOH电解质溶液（O₂气氛）中0.014 V（相对于标准氧电极（RHE））即可产生明显的氧还原电流.同40%Py/C相比,10%Co30%Py/C催化氧还原的起峰电位正移了71 mV,同时表现出明显的极限扩散电流.在-0.16 V时电流密度达到最大值,电流密度为1.0 mA·cm^-2,半波电位在-0.07 V.透射电镜分析表明所制备的碳黑载吡啶钴（10%Co30%Py/C）催化剂平均粒径为20 nm.     

ZnO Quantum Dots Coupled with Graphene toward Electrocatalytic N2 Reduction: Experimental and DFT Investigations

Electrochemical reduction of N₂ to NH₃ is a promising method for artificial N₂ fixation, but it requires efficient and robust electrocatalysts to boost the N₂ reduction reaction (NRR). Herein, a combination of experimental measurements and theoretical calculations revealed that a hybrid material in which ZnO quantum dots (QDs) are supported on reduced graphene oxide (ZnO/RGO) is a highly active and stable catalyst for NRR under ambient conditions. Experimentally, ZnO/RGO was confirmed to favor N₂ adsorption due to the largely exposed active sites of ultrafine ZnO QDs. DFT calculations disclosed that the electronic coupling of ZnO with RGO resulted in a considerably reduced activation-energy barrier for stabilization of *N₂H, which is the rate-limiting step of the NRR. Consequently, ZnO/RGO delivered an NH₃ yield of 17.7 μg h⁻¹ mg⁻¹ and a Faradaic efficiency of 6.4 % in 0.1 m Na₂SO₄ at −0.65 V (vs. RHE), which compare favorably to those of most of the reported NRR catalysts and thus demonstrate the feasibility of ZnO/RGO for electrocatalytic N₂ fixation.     

Phosphorene-Supported Transition-Metal Dimer for Effective N2 Electroreduction

The electrochemical reduction of N₂ to NH₃ at ambient conditions is a promising alternative to the energy-intensive, high-temperature, high-pressure Haber-Bosch process. But it is extremely challenging to find an electrocatalyst that can effectively activate N₂ and reduce it to NH₃. From first principles density functional theory, we found that the Ti dimer supported on single-layer phosphorene can be used as a promising electrocatalyst for N₂ capture and conversion to NH₃. The overpotential (relative to the standard hydrogen electrode) was found to be as low as 0.20, much lower than those predicted on the Ti surface (1 to 1.5 V) or their nitrides (0.5 to 1 V). In addition, we found that hydride is involved in the N₂ reduction on the Ti dimer catalyst via formation of Ti₂-H species, and the hydride would favorably transfer onto the adsorbed N₂* to form *NNH intermediate and further reduced to NH₃. Moreover, we also examined other first-row transition metal dimers, and found that Sc and Fe dimer to be potential catalysts which could catalyze N₂ reduction at a low overpotential of about 0.21 and 0.45 V, respectively. Our predictions hence suggest Ti, Sc and Fe dimer clusters supported on phosphorene as promising electrocatalysts for N₂ reduction to NH₃.     

锗纳米管催化的氧还原反应:催化性能和机理研究

应用密度泛函理论,在DZP基组水平上研究了（5,5）型锗纳米管催化的氧还原反应（ORR）的性能以及可能的催化机理.计算结果表明,ORR在锗纳米管上可能经历O₂解离、OOH解离、H₂O₂解离三种可能机理.无论是对哪种机理,整个ORR均遵循四电子反应路径.评估ORR性能的重要中间产物O和OH的吸附能分别为-4.33 eV和-2.21 eV,这与它们在贵金属铂（Pt）上的吸附能非常接近.此外,在GeNT上,整个ORR过程中最后一步生成的H₂O分子的吸附能仅仅为-0.05 eV,比O₂分子的吸附能弱得多,意味着整个ORR催化循环在GeNT上可以顺利更替.因此,联合ORR的反应能量数据和中间产物的吸附数据,可以认为（5,5）型锗纳米管具有类Pt的催化性能.溶剂效应计算结果表明,一些反应中间产物的吸附结构,如O中间体会在很大程度上受到溶剂效应的影响.对所研究的锗纳米管来说,溶剂效应可以促进其催化的ORR进程.     

Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction with a Half‐Sandwich Cobalt Catalyst: Selectivity towards CO

We present herein a Cp*Co(III)‐half‐sandwich catalyst system for electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction in aqueous acetonitrile solution. In addition to an electron‐donating Cp* ligand (Cp*=pentamethylcyclopentadienyl), the catalyst featured a proton‐responsive pyridyl‐benzimidazole‐based N,N‐bidentate ligand. Owing to the presence of a relatively electron‐rich Co center, the reduced Co(I)‐state was made prone to activate the electrophilic carbon center of CO₂. At the same time, the proton‐responsive benzimidazole scaffold was susceptible to facilitate proton‐transfer during the subsequent reduction of CO₂. The above factors rendered the present catalyst active toward producing CO as the major product over the other potential 2e/2H⁺ reduced product HCOOH, in contrast to the only known similar half‐sandwich CpCo(III)‐based CO₂‐reduction catalysts which produced HCOOH selectively. The system exhibited a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of about 70% while the overpotential for CO production was found to be 0.78 V, as determined by controlled‐potential electrolysis.