Sulfur vacancies-doped Sb_(2)S_(3) nanorods as high-efficient electrocatalysts for dinitrogen fixation under ambient conditions

Tuning surface electron transfer process by sulfur(S)-vacancies engineering is an efficient strategy to develop high-efficient catalysts for electroreduction N_(2) reaction(NRR). Herein, the distinct Sb_(2)S_(3) nanorods with S-vacancies(Sv-Sb_(2)S_(3)) have been synthesized by a simple twostep method including hydrothermal and hydrogenation in H_(2)/Ar atmosphere, which shows improved performance for NRR with the NH_(3) yield rate of 10.85 μg h^(-1) mgcat^(-1) at-0.4 V vs. RHE, the faradaic efficiency(FE) of 3.75% at -0.3 V vs. RHE and excellent stability for 24 h, largely outperforming bulk Sb_(2)S_(3). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) and density function theory(DFT) calculations demonstrate that the abundant S-vacancies can create an electron-deficient environment and modulate the electron delocalization in Sv-Sb_(2)S_(3), which can not only facilitate the N_(2) molecule adsorption, but also activate the N≡N, resulting in the enhanced performance for NRR.