Confinement of Intermediates in Blue TiO<sub>2</sub> Nanotube Arrays Boosts Reaction Rate of Nitrogen Electrocatalysis
Jianfang Zhang, Yujing Tian, Tianyu Zhang, Zhengyuan Li, Xiaojie She, Yucheng Wu, Yan Wang, Jingjie Wu
Abstract
Abstract Electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) is a complementary route to the traditional Haber‐Bosch process. Boosting the reaction kinetics of electrocatalytic NRR is key to promote the NH 3 yield. Herein, we demonstrate that the confinement of reactive intermediates (e. g., *N 2 ) in highly ordered blue TiO 2 nanotubes (b‐TiO 2 ) can significantly enhance the surface reaction rate of electrocatalytic NRR on the encapsulated metal oxide catalysts. The enhancement of the reaction rate of NH 3 synthesis is attributed to the increased surface coverage of intermediates inside the b‐TiO 2 nanotubes. Benefiting from the confinement effect of intermediates, the b‐TiO 2 nanotubes enclosing metal oxide electrodes show both higher production rate and Faradaic efficiency of NH 3 than the combined ones of individual metal oxide and b‐TiO 2 electrodes.