Efficient Photoelectrochemical Route for the Ambient Reduction of N2 to NH3 Based on Nanojunctions Assembled from MoS2 Nanosheets and TiO2

作者：Wen Ye, Muhammad Zulqarnain Arif, Xiaoyu Fang, Muhammad Asim Mushtaq, Xuebo Chen, Dongpeng Yan · 发表于：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1021/acsami.9b06596 · 被引用次数：166 · 研究领域：Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction、Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques、Hydrogen Storage and Materials

Efficient nitrogen fixation under ambient conditions is an exigent task in both basic research and industrial applications. Recently, reduction of N 2 to NH 3 based on photocatalysis and/or electrocatalysis offers a possible route to the typical Haber–Bosch process. However, achieving a high yield of N 2 reduction reaction (NRR) is still a challenging goal because of the limitations of efficient catalysts. Herein, we propose a photoelectrochemical NRR route based on the rational design of MoS 2 @TiO 2 semiconductor nanojunction catalysts through a facile hydrothermal synthetic method. The developed MoS 2 @TiO 2 photocathode attains a high NH 3 yield rate (1.42 × 10 –6 mol h –1 cm –2 ) and a superhigh faradaic efficiency (65.52%), which is the highest record to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, MoS 2 @TiO 2 exhibits high stability over 10 consecutive reaction cycles. Therefore, this work demonstrates an effective NRR photoelectrocatalyst and results in a breakthrough in the low faradaic efficiency because of the interfacial electronic coupling and synergistic effects between the MoS 2 and TiO 2 components.