Issue 38, 2018

Double-atom catalysts: transition metal dimer-anchored C2N monolayers as N2 fixation electrocatalysts

Abstract

Nitrogen fixation is one of the most essential processes in chemistry. Developing more effective nitrogen fixation systems to catalyze the reaction under mild conditions is one of the most attractive but long-standing challenges. In this work, by means of first-principles computations, we systematically investigated the catalytic performance of transition metal atom-anchored C2N monolayer electrocatalysts (TMx@C2N, x = 1 or 2; TM = Ti, Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Ir, Pt, or Au) for N2 fixation. The natively N edged uniform holes could fix the TM atoms firmly in TM–Nx configurations, which is beneficial for the N2 fixation. Among them, Mo2@C2N exhibits the best catalytic performance for the reduction of N2 to NH3 with a maximum free energy change of 0.41 eV and an energy barrier of 0.51 eV, indicating that Mo2@C2N is a promising catalyst with high catalytic activity for the reduction of N2 to NH3. We believe that this work could provide a new idea for the design of N2 fixation catalysts and shed light on C2N monolayers as excellent substrates for catalysis.

Graphical abstract: Double-atom catalysts: transition metal dimer-anchored C2N monolayers as N2 fixation electrocatalysts

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Aug 2018
Accepted
04 Sep 2018
First published
04 Sep 2018

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018,6, 18599-18604

Double-atom catalysts: transition metal dimer-anchored C2N monolayers as N2 fixation electrocatalysts

X. Zhang, A. Chen, Z. Zhang and Z. Zhou, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018, 6, 18599 DOI: 10.1039/C8TA07683A

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