Asymmetric acidic/alkaline N_(2)electrofixation accelerated by high-entropy metal-organic framework derivatives

High-entropy materials are composed of five or more metal elements with equimolar or near-equimolar concentrations within one crystal structure,which offer remarkable structural properties for many applications.Despite previously reported entropy-driven stabilization mechanisms,many high-entropy materials still tend to decompose to produce a variety of derivatives under operating conditions.In this study,we use transition-metal(Ni,Co,Ni,Zn,V)-based high-entropy metal-organic frameworks(HE-MOFs)as the precursors to produce different derivatives under acidic/alkaline treatment.We have shown that HE-MOFs and derivatives have shown favorable kinetics for N_(2)electrofixation in different pH electrolytes,specifically cathodic nitrogen reduction reaction in acidic media and anodic oxygen evolution reaction in alkaline media.To buffer the pH mismatch,we have further constructed an asymmetric acidic/alkaline device prototype by using bipolar membranes.As expected,the prototype showed remarkable activities,with an NH_(3)yield rate of 42.76μg h^(−1)mg^(−1),and Faradaic efficiency of 14.75%and energy efficiency of 2.59%,which are 14.4 and 4.4 times larger than those of its symmetric acidic and alkaline counterparts,respectively.