Free‐Standing Nanoarrays with Energetic Electrons and Active Sites for Efficient Plasmon‐Driven Ammonia Synthesis
Weiyi Jiang, Haona Zhang, Yang An, Yuyin Mao, Zeyan Wang, Yuanyuan Liu, Peng Wang, Zhaoke Zheng, Wei Wei, Ying Dai, Hefeng Cheng, Baibiao Huang
Abstract
Abstract Direct ammonia (NH 3 ) synthesis from water and atmospheric nitrogen using sunlight provides an energy‐sustainable and carbon‐neutral alternative to the Haber–Bosch process. However, the development of such a route with high performance is impeded by the lack of effective charge transfer and abundant active sites to initiate the nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). Here, the authors report efficient plasmon‐induced photoelectrochemical (PEC) NH 3 synthesis on the hierarchical free‐standing Au/K x MoO 3 /Mo/K x MoO 3 /Au nanoarrays. Endowed with energetically hot electrons and catalytically active sites, the plasmonic nanoarrays exhibit an efficient PEC NH 3 synthesis rate of 9.6 µg cm −2 h −1 under visible light irradiation, which is among the highest PEC NRR systems. This work demonstrates the rationally designed plasmonic nanoarrays for highly efficient NH 3 synthesis, which paves a new path for PEC catalytic reactions driven by surface plasmons and future monolithic PEC devices for direct artificial photosynthesis.