Having the strained electrocatalyst

Having the strained electrocatalysts in hand, we next sought to evaluate the benefit that the strain could bring to ammonia electrosynthesis from NITRR operating under room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The electrocatalysis was performed using Ag/AgCl as the reference electrode, platinum mesh as the counter electrode, and carbon paper coated by the strained catalysts as the working electrode. All of the electrodes were assembled within a H-type cell, an electrolyzer with mature applications in CO2 and N2 electroreduction.54 The possible effects of other electrocatalytic reactions are minimized by bubbling high-purity argon into nitratecontaining electrolytes throughout NITRR. The products of H2 and ammonia were quantified by gas chromatography (GC) and by ion chromatograph (IC) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), respectively. We determined the Faradaic efficiency (FENH3) for nitrate-to-ammonia as well as the ammonia-evolving rate (vNH3), and the partial current density (JNH3), respectively, according to FENH3 = (8F × CNH3 × V)/Q, vNH3 = (CNH3 × V)/(t × m), and JNH3 = (Q × FENH3)/t. Here, F is the Faraday constant, CNH3 is the molar concentration of measured ammonia, V is the volume of the electrolyte, Q is the charge passing through the catalyst, t is the reaction time, and m is the catalyst mass.