Category Ranking
98%
Total Visits
921
Avg Visit Duration
2 minutes
Citations
20
Article Abstract
Urea electrosynthesis from CO and nitrate (NO ) provides an attractive pathway for storing renewable electricity and substituting traditional energy-intensive urea synthesis technology. However, the kinetics mismatching between CO reduction and NO reduction, as well as the difficulty of C─N coupling, are major challenges in urea electrosynthesis. Herein, we first calculated the free energy of *CO, *OCNO, and *NOH formation over defect-rich FeO catalysts with different metal dopants, which showed that Zn dopant was a promising candidate. Based on the theoretical study, we developed Zn-doped defect-rich FeO catalysts (Zn-FeO/O) containing asymmetric Zn-O-Fe sites. It exhibited an outstanding urea faradaic efficiency of 62.4% and the remarkable recycling stability. The production rate of urea was as high as 7.48 mg h mg , which is higher than most of the reported works to date. Detailed control experiments and in situ spectroscopy analyses identified *OCNO as a crucial intermediate for C─N coupling. The Zn-FeO/O catalyst with asymmetric Zn-O-Fe sites showed enhanced *CO coverage and promoted *OCNO formation, leading to high efficiency toward urea production.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.202501830 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Phosphorus-Doped Cu/FeO Electrocatalysts with Optimized Synergy between the Different Sites for Efficient Urea Electrosynthesis.
J Am Chem Soc
August 2025
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Processes, State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Molecular & Process Engineering, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
Urea electrosynthesis from the coelectrolysis of CO and NO (UECN) has emerged as a promising sustainable alternative to traditional energy-intensive methods; however, the rational design of advanced electrocatalysts capable of achieving concurrent optimization of Faradaic efficiency (FE) and urea yield rates continues to pose a fundamental challenge in this field. Herein, we developed a phosphorus-doped Cu/FeO electrocatalyst (denoted as P-Cu/FeO), where phosphorus atoms partially substitute for oxygen atoms within the Cu/FeO heterostructure. This engineered electrocatalyst achieves exceptional urea electrosynthesis performance, delivering a very high Faradaic efficiency of 73.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree-Site Catalysis of In-MoB to Boost Urea Electrosynthesis.
Nano Lett
September 2025
Anhui Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Functional Composite Materials, School of Physics and Electronic Information, Huaibei Normal University, Huaibei 235000, Anhui, China.
We develop single-atom In on MoB (In-MoB) as an efficient catalyst for urea synthesis from coelectrolysis of NO and CO. Mechanistic studies reveal a three-site synergistic catalysis mechanism of In-MoB, where In/B sites enable the formation of *CO/*NH intermediates and their C-N coupling, while the Mo site facilitates HO dissociation to provide the ample protons required for the protonation of C/N intermediates toward urea generation. Moreover, by employing a plasma-electrocatalytic route with integrating plasma-driven air oxidation and electrocatalysis, In-MoB exhibits the exceptional Faradaic efficiency of 80.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPore Engineering for Directional CO Enrichment in Urea Electrosynthesis.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces
August 2025
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Western University of Ontario, 1150 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 3K7, Canada.
Electrochemical synthesis of urea from CO and nitrate offers a sustainable pathway to address both carbon emissions and nitrogen pollution. However, achieving high C-N coupling selectivity remains challenging due to competing hydrogen evolution reactions and insufficient CO utilization. Herein, we implement a nanopore-structure engineering strategy to precisely tailor pore length and surface chemistry in metal-free porous carbon frameworks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransforming CO Poisoning into a Critical Step for Electrocatalytic C─N Coupling to Urea in a Carbon-Dot-Dominated Nanoreactor.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
August 2025
State Key Laboratory of Bioinspired Interfacial Materials Science, Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215123, P.R. China.
Modern catalysis science has traditionally viewed carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning negatively due to its detrimental effects, such as the deactivation of metal sites. Here, we demonstrate a transformative approach by converting CO poisoning into a beneficial strategy to achieve high activity and selectivity in urea electrosynthesis. We designed a multiscale and multisite nanoreactor composed of copper-carbon dots (Cu-CDs) and bornite (CuFeS), which exploits CO-poisoned iron sites as anchors to facilitate efficient multi-species integration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDecoupled Control of CO and Nitrate Reduction Intermediates to Enable Efficient Tandem Urea Electrosynthesis.
ACS Nano
August 2025
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Republic of Singapore.
The direct electrochemical coupling of CO and nitrate (NO) offers a sustainable alternative to the energy-intensive Bosch-Meiser process for urea synthesis. However, achieving efficient C-N coupling at single active sites remains challenging due to the kinetic mismatch between CO and NO reduction, as well as the intricate multistep proton-coupled electron transfer process. Here, we present a sacrificial template-based strategy to synthesize a two-dimensional (2D)/zero-dimensional (0D) FePS/AgS heterostructure catalyst, enabling the tandem coreduction of CO and nitrate for urea electrosynthesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF