Electrochemical reduction of nitrate to hydroxylamine on gold electrode

Yangshan Xie; Michiel De Ras; Jiwu Zhao; Tianxi Liu; Feili Lai; Johan Hofkens; Maarten B J Roeffaers

doi:10.1039/d4cc03620d

Electrochemical reduction of nitrate to hydroxylamine on gold electrode

Chem Commun (Camb). 2024 Sep 26;60(78):10918-10921. doi: 10.1039/d4cc03620d.

Authors

Yangshan Xie¹, Michiel De Ras², Jiwu Zhao^{3

4}, Tianxi Liu⁵, Feili Lai⁵, Johan Hofkens^{2

6}, Maarten B J Roeffaers¹

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Membrane Separations, Adsorption, Catalysis, and Spectroscopy for Sustainable Solutions, Department of Microbial and Molecular Systems, KU Leuven Celestijnenlaan 200F, 3001 Leuven, Belgium. maarten.roeffaers@kuleuven.be.
² Molecular Imaging and Photonics, Department of Chemistry, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, Leuven, 3001, Belgium.
³ State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350116, China.
⁴ Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ The Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, International Joint Research Laboratory for Nano Energy Composites, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China.
⁶ Max Plank Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, D-55128, Germany.

PMID: 39254599
DOI: 10.1039/d4cc03620d

Abstract

In this study, we explore the efficacy of gold (Au) as a selective electrocatalyst for the reduction of nitrate to hydroxylamine, a valuable nitrogen-based chemical, while also evaluating the by-product formation of ammonia. We systematically optimized various experimental parameters including nitrate concentration, pH, and applied potential. We found that at an applied potential of -0.7 V vs. RHE in 0.1 M HNO₃, Au achieves a 230.1 ± 19 μmol NH₂OH h^-1 cm^-2 yield, with a 34.2 ± 2.8% faradaic efficiency. This study underscores the potential of Au as an efficient and selective electrocatalyst for generating value-added nitrogen products through an electrochemical pathway.