Abstract
Urea is a commonly used nitrogen fertiliser synthesised from ammonia and carbon dioxide using thermal catalysis. This process results in high carbon dioxide emissions associated with the required amounts of ammonia. Electrocatalysis provides an alternative method to urea production with reduced carbon emissions while utilising waste products like nitrate. This manuscript reports on urea synthesis from the electroreduction of nitrate and carbon dioxide using CuOxZnOy electrodes under mild conditions. Catalysts with different ratios of CuO and ZnO, synthesised via flame spray pyrolysis, were explored for the reaction. The results revealed that all the CuOxZnOy electrocatalyst compositions produce urea, but the efficiency strongly depends on the metal ratio composition of the catalysts. The CuO50ZnO50 composition had the best performance in terms of selectivity (41% at −0.8 V vs RHE) and activity (0.27 mA/cm2 at −0.8 V vs RHE) towards urea production. Thus, this material is one of the most efficient electrocatalysts for urea production reported so far. This study systematically evaluates bimetallic catalysts with varying compositions for urea synthesis from carbon dioxide and nitrate.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 199 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Communications Chemistry |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors acknowledge A.M. Elemans-Mehring for assistance with the ICP-OES measurements, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) for provision of synchrotron radiation facilities and the scientists at the ID31 beamline for their assistance. The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Strategic UU-TU/e Alliance project ‘Joint Centre for Chemergy Research’ and the research programme ‘Reversible Large-scale Energy Storage’ (RELEASE) with project number 17621 which is partly financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
