Bimetallic Interface of RuCu Hollow Nanostructures Combined with B<sub>4</sub>C for Enhancing Electrocatalysis on Nitrate Reduction
Yang Si, Huixian Wei, Hong Xia, Liangsheng Hu, Ying Song, Muwei Ji, Fushen Lu
Abstract
A technology for nitrate reduction is required urgently because of serious nitrate pollution and ammonia deficiency. RuCu was usually prepared and tailored with facile methods and had a high performance on nitrate reduction because of the high activity of Ru on nitrate reduction and the inhibition of hydrogen evolution by Cu. Hence, constructing RuCu hollow nanoparticles is a possible way to obtain a high atomic utilization, and the interface or porous structure would bring high activity on electrocatalysis. Herein, RuCu hollow nanoparticles were prepared by a hydrothermal reaction and then loaded on a B 4 C substrate to construct the RuCu/B 4 C catalysts that exhibited high activity on nitrate reduction reaction (NO 3 RR) to produce ammonia. The results showed that the ammonia yield rate on the RuCu/B 4 C catalyst was 55.60 ± 1.46 mg h –1 mg cat –1, and the Faradaic efficiency (FE) was as high as 92.79 ± 1.56% at −0.6 V RHE . Further studies suggested that the synergistic effect between B 4 C and RuCu in the catalyst promoted their performance. In detail, RuCu nanoparticles with hollow structures served as the main active centers to transform NO 3 – into NH 3, cooperating with the enhancement of NO 3 – adsorption by the support B 4 C. Therefore, RuCu/B 4 C synergistically achieved the high yield performance of ammonia.