Preparation And Electrocatalytic Performance Of Non-noble Metal Sb And Nb-based Nanomaterials For Nitrogen Reduction Reaction

Ammonia（NH₃）is of great significance in fields such as agriculture,industry,and national defense.At present,the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process is the main method of artificial ammonia synthesis.This process not only consumes high energy,but also emits a large amount of greenhouse gases.Therefore,the development of mild,environmentally friendly ammonia synthesis alternative technology has important strategic significance.The electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction（ENRR）driven by renewable energy provides a promising green synthesis process for the production of NH₃ under normal temperature and pressure.However,due to the chemical inertness of N₂ molecules and the existence of the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction（HER）in the solution phase system,most ENRR catalysts exhibit problems such as low activity and poor selectivity.Therefore,the design of high-efficiency ENRR catalysts is very important.In view of this,we used defect construction and two-component synergistic strategies to modify the catalyst to achieve the goal of improving ammonia synthesis efficiency.The main research content of this paper includes the following two aspects:（1）The acid-assisted stripping method is adopted to simultaneously realize the successful stripping and defect construction of antimony nanosheets.Studies have shown that defective antimony nanosheets have a larger specific surface area,more catalytically active sites,and faster NRR kinetics than its bulk material（bulk Sb）,and exhibit excellent electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction activity.This synthetic strategy of synchronously introducing defects during the synthesis process can effectively improve the intrinsic activity of the material and provides a way for us to design high-activity electrocatalysts in the future.（2）A nanocomposite material（Nb₂O₅/RGO）coupled with Nb₂O₅ nanoparticles and reduced graphene oxide（Nb₂O₅/RGO）was synthesized by a one-step thermal solvent method.Studies have shown that the high specific surface area brought by ultra-small Nb_2O5nanoparticles can effectively adsorb and activate nitrogen molecules.At the same time,the interface effect brought by the bonding with RGO can effectively promote charge transfer and improve the poor conductivity of Nb₂O₅ nanoparticles.This strategy of using the synergistic effect between different components to enhance the activity of materials provides a powerful reference for us to design multi-component catalyst materials.