Pothole‐rich Ultrathin WO₃ Nanosheets that Trigger N≡N Bond Activation of Nitrogen for Direct Nitrate Photosynthesis

Abstract

Nitrate is ar aw ingredient for the production of fertilizer,g unpowder,a nd explosives.D eveloping an alternative approach to activate the NNbond of naturally abundant nitrogen to form nitrate under ambient conditions will be of importance.Herein, pothole-rich WO 3 was used to catalyse the activation of N Nc ovalent triple bonds for the direct nitrate synthesis at room temperature.T he pothole-rich structure endues the WO 3 nanosheet more dangling bonds and more easily excited high momentum electrons,w hicho vercome the two major bottlenecks in NNb ond activation, that is,p oor binding of N 2 to catalytic materials and the high energy involved in this reaction. The average rate of nitrate production is as high as 1.92 mg g À1 h À1 under ambient conditions,without any sacrificial agent or precious-metal co-catalysts.M ore generally,t he concepts will initiate an ew pathwayf or triggering inert catalytic reactions.

Recent Advanced Materials for Electrochemical and Photoelectrochemical Synthesis of Ammonia from Dinitrogen: One Step Closer to a Sustainable Energy Future

“…More recently, atomically thin 2D nanosheets have aroused significant attention in photo/electro energy conversion and storage due to their high surface‐to‐volume ratio, maximized electron transfer path and massive coordination‐unsaturated surface atoms. When reducing the thickness of 2D nanosheets to fewer or ultimately a single layer, the substrate with abundant active sites and surface defects from disordered lattices might achieve an exceptional photoelectrocatalytic performance of N 2 fixation . In addition, single atoms on substrate can serve as active sites by regulating their electronic properties in the photoelectrocatalytic reactions .…”

Stereoassembled V 2 O 5 @FeOOH Hollow Architectures with Lithiation Volumetric Strain Self-Reconstruction for Lithium-Ion Storage

“…In sharp contrast to V 2 O 5 @FeOOH-1 that is obtained by using Fe(NO 3 ) 3 . Importantly, the hierarchical hollow structure hardly maintains when further increasing the mass ratio of Fe(NO 3 ) 3 to V 2 O 5 (V 2 O 5 @FeOOH-5).…”

“…Featuring high theoretical lithium storage capacity, considerable structural versatility and appealing electrochemical reactivity, transition metal oxides (TMOs, e.g., M x O y , M=Cu, Fe, Co, Ni, Mn, etc.) have received tremendous interest for potential energy storage applications [1][2][3][4][5]. Moreover, TMOs are endowed with enhanced safety as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), as the lithium dendrite growth can be inhibited at a relatively higher lithiation reaction potential.…”

Thin‐Layered Photocatalysts

“…In the past few decades, metal and mix metal oxides, e.g., TiO 2 , CoO, In 2 O 3 , Fe 2 O 3 , WO 3 , MoO 3 , Ca 2 Nb 3 O 10 , SnNb 2 O 6 , HNbWO 6 have always been popular in the field of photocatalysis. [ 30–40 ] However, their catalytic performance is still far from the requirements for practical applications, which is obstructed by the inefficient light harvesting and rapid recombination of electron–hole pairs. One effective strategy for improving their photocatalytic performance is to reduce their thickness and constructing thin‐layered metal and mix metal oxides.…”