Efficient Photoelectrochemical Route for the Ambient Reduction of N to NH Based on Nanojunctions Assembled from MoS Nanosheets and TiO.

Efficient nitrogen fixation under ambient conditions is an exigent task in both basic research and industrial applications. Recently, reduction of N to NH based on photocatalysis and/or electrocatalysis offers a possible route to the typical Haber-Bosch process. However, achieving a high yield of N reduction reaction (NRR) is still a challenging goal because of the limitations of efficient catalysts. Herein, we propose a photoelectrochemical NRR route based on the rational design of MoS@TiO semiconductor nanojunction catalysts through a facile hydrothermal synthetic method. The developed MoS@TiO photocathode attains a high NH yield rate (1.42 × 10 mol h cm) and a superhigh faradaic efficiency (65.52%), which is the highest record to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, MoS@TiO exhibits high stability over 10 consecutive reaction cycles. Therefore, this work demonstrates an effective NRR photoelectrocatalyst and results in a breakthrough in the low faradaic efficiency because of the interfacial electronic coupling and synergistic effects between the MoS and TiO components.