Single Atoms of Iron on MoS2 Nanosheets for N2 Electroreduction into Ammonia

Abstract

Ammonia (NH 3 ) plays a pivotal role in our daily life considering its wide applications in fertilizer industry. Many efforts have been devoted to achieving highly efficient artificial synthesis of ammonia. Herein, we reported a novel Fe‐MoS 2 catalyst with Fe atomically dispersed on MoS 2 nanosheets by imitating the natural nitrogenase to boost N 2 electroreduction into NH 3 at room temperature. The Fe‐MoS 2 nanosheets exhibited a faradic efficiency of 18.8% with a yield rate of 8.63 mg NH3 mg cat. ‐1 h ‐1 for NH 3 at ‐0.3 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode. The mechanism study revealed that the electroreduction of N 2 was promoted and the competing hydrogen evolution reaction was suppressed by decorating the edge sites of S in the MoS 2 with the atomically dispersed Fe, resulting in the high catalytic performance for the electroreduction of N 2 into NH 3. This work would provide new ideas for the design of catalysts for N 2 electroreduction and strengthen our understanding about the N 2 activation on Mo‐based catalysts.