Surface-Regulated Rhodium-Antimony Nanorods for Nitrogen Fixation.

Surface regulation is an effective strategy to improve the performance of catalysts, but it has been rarely demonstrated for nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) to date. Now, surface-rough Rh Sb nanorod (RNR) and surface-smooth Rh Sb NR (SNR) were selectively created, and their performance for NRR was investigated. The high-index-facet bounded Rh Sb RNRs/C exhibit a high NH yield rate of 228.85±12.96 μg h  mg at -0.45 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), outperforming the Rh Sb SNRs/C (63.07±4.45 μg h  mg ) and Rh nanoparticles/C (22.82±1.49 μg h  mg ), owing to the enhanced adsorption and activation of N on high-index facets. Rh Sb RNRs/C also show durable stability with negligible activity decay after 10 h of successive electrolysis. The present work demonstrates that surface regulation plays an important role in promoting NRR activity and provides a new strategy for creating efficient NRR electrocatalysts.