Surface hydrophobic modification enhanced catalytic performance of electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction

Electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction(NRR)is a sustainable approach for NH_(3)production with low energy consumption.However,competing hydrogen reduction reaction(HER)in aqueous solution results in low NH_(3)production and Faraday efficiency(FE).Here,MoS_(2)nanostructures with a hydrophobic surface are synthesized by alkyl thiols modification.Aerophilic and hydrophobic surface facilitates an efficient three-phase contact of N_(2),H_(2)O,and catalyst.Thus,localized concentrated N_(2)molecules can overcome the mass transfer limitation of N2 and depress the HER due to lowering the proton contacts.Although the active-sites decrease with the increase of the alkyl chain since the thiol may cover the active site,the optimized electrocatalyst achieves NH_(3)yield of 12.86×10^(-11)mol·cm^(-2)·s^(-1)at-0.25 V and 22.23%FE,which are 4.3 and 24 times higher than those of MoS2-CP electrocatalyst,respectively.The increased catalytic performance is attributed to the high N_(2)adsorption and depressed HER.