ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Chem.
Sec. Electrochemistry
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fchem.2025.1629904
This article is part of the Research TopicGreen hydrogen energy: Advancing materials and chemical processesView all articles
Strongly Coupling Cu with MoP for High-efficiency Eletrochemical Nitrate-to-Ammonia Conversion and Zinc-Nitrate battery
Provisionally accepted
- 1China West Normal University, Nanchong, China
- 2Sichuan University of Arts and Science, Dazhou, China
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The electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NITRR) offers a sustainable route for ammonia synthesis and environmental remediation, yet faces challenges such as sluggish kinetics and competing hydrogen evolution. This study aims to address these limitations by designing a Cu/MoP heterostructure catalyst through one-pot calcination, which integrates Cu nanoparticles with MoP nanograins. Structural and electronic analyses confirm the formation of intimate Cu-MoP interfaces, where charge redistribution polarizes Cu to an electron-deficient state (Cu δ+ ) and enriches MoP with electrons. This configuration may enhance nitrate adsorption on Cu δ+ while MoP efficiently supplies protons via accelerated water dissociation. The Cu/MoP catalyst achieves a record-high NH3 faradaic efficiency of 98.93% and a yield rate of 30.72 mmol h -1 cm -2 at -0.5 V (vs. RHE), outperforming that of isolated Cu or MoP. When deployed in a Zn-nitrate battery, the composite cathode delivers a peak power density of 12.97 mW cm -2 . This work provides a promising solution for the insufficient active hydrogen supply and poor NH3 conversion efficiency of Cu-based nitrate reduction catalysts.
Keywords: Copper nanoparticles, molybdenum phosphide nanoparticles, heterostructure, Nitrate reduction reaction, Zn-nitrate battery
Received: 16 May 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Chen, He, Li and Gou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhimin He, China West Normal University, Nanchong, China
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